


In Which Everything is Okay

by The_Singular_Peep



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Dad Hopper, Family, Fluff, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Not Much Shipping, Series of Oneshots, Sickfic, baby El with her intense feelings, but theres a tiny bit of mileven and jopper if you SQUINT in later chapters, heaVY family stuff, if you want separate they're separate on my ff.net account, its a series of loosely-connected one shots that I chose to post as one big fic instead of separate, mainly about Eleven learning to grow and live, partially i mean
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-04
Updated: 2018-12-17
Packaged: 2019-02-28 00:40:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 45,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13259970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Singular_Peep/pseuds/The_Singular_Peep
Summary: They weren't okay yet, and they had a long road of recovery ahead of them. But, they would be, and that's what matters.Or, Eleven starts to live a normal life and has a lot to get used to.[SERIES OF LOOSELY RELATED ONE-SHOTS. ELEVEN AND HOPPER / ELEVEN AND THE PARTY BONDING. INCOMPLETE.]





	1. In Which Hopper Changes the Sheets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It wasn't uncommon in chronically ill children, or children that had been abused, so it didn't surprise Hopper. He had gone through this with Sara. But, Sara hadn't ever reacted like this. Maybe that was because Sara was never punished for simply being a child.

****In Which Hopper Changes the Sheets [In Which Everything is Okay; PT 1/?]** **

****

* * *

 

****January 4, 1984** ** ****.** ** ****Wednesday.** **

 

Hopper was used to being woken up by Eleven. It had been two weeks since he had found her all cold and curled up and close to death -- or at least hypothermia -- in the woods, and every night since then he had been woken up by crying. Well, almost every night. The first week he was up with her all night as she was too afraid to even sleep, mainly reading to her and trying to coax her into drinking water. But every night this week, every night that the painfully small girl had been sleeping in her own bed, Hopper had been woken to her cries.

Normally they weren’t too loud. They were simple cries; sometimes little whimpers, sometimes sobs turned to coughs, sometimes cries of “Papa,” and once or twice she screamed. Every night.

And every night, Hopper would go into her room and sit with her until she calmed. He would rock, or sing to, or count with the child until she fell back to sleep. Every single night.

Except.. Tonight there had been no crying. Or screaming. Or whimpering. At least, not that Hopper could hear. He had woken out of his own free will, or maybe just out of habit, at two am to hear…. Nothing. Frankly, it was a little disquieting.

“El?” He called, sitting up in bed. He rubbed his eyes as he stood and pulled sweatpants over his boxers. “Eleven, you okay?”

Everything was normal when he stepped into the hallway, and even when he got up to Eleven’s door. But then he heard tiny whimpers and nodded to himself. He knew something was up.

“Hey, kiddo, I’m coming in, alright?” He said, rapping lightly on the door. He got no response, but he expected that. And so he opened the door and was only a little surprised at what he saw.

Eleven was curled up in the corner away from her bed, her knees pulled to her chest and her face cupped in her hands. But then there was a slight musty scent, and her blankets were pulled haphazardly to the floor, and…

Oh.

When Sara was sick, this had happened a lot. He remembered waking up at night to his little girl giving rushed apologies in her eight year old voice.

“I’m sorry daddy, I didn’t mean to, I promise.” She would whimper, hugging herself close. Hopper remembered how tiny and sickly her form was, and how embarrassed she was of her accidents. The doctor had told them that it was common in chronically ill children, and that Sara’s bedwetting was normal, but Sara had always just been so hard on herself.

It looked like El was experiencing the same thing.

“Hey, El, hey,” Hopper tried, moving slowly into the room. “It’s alright.”

“Sorry, sorry, sorry,” Eleven sobbed, moving backwards clumsily as soon as Hopper entered. “Sorry, sorry! ‘M sorry!”

A picture frame fell from the shelf across the room, and a small snowglobe, a dusty one that had belonged to Hoppers grandfather as a lost gift for his mother, burst. Eleven was being quite loud now, her cries almost turning to screams. She was absolutely sobbing, and Hopper wasn’t quite sure what to do. Sara had never done this.

But maybe that was because Sara was never punished for simply being a child.

“Hey, shh, shh, its okay, sweet girl, it’s alright.” He said softly as he got down at her level and reached for her softly. That nickname was one he saved only for Sara.

He figured this was a good enough time to use it again.

Eleven flinched away from his touch, but after a moment she leaned into it. Hopper was calm and quiet as much as possible, and apparently it was working. She clung to him like a young child as her screams turned to sobs. Hopper continued to shush and pat her back as she moved towards him, her wet nightgown clinging to her legs.

It had been ten minutes by the time she calmed down to just hiccups and heavy breaths, and when this happened Hopper pulled away the tiniest bit. She grabbed at his shirt helplessly, whimpering.

“Lets get you cleaned up, yeah?”

He stood and in turn picked up Eleven, and she hugged him tightly.

“And don’t worry about this. Accidents happen, kid. I’m not mad.”

Eleven burrowed into his shirt, and Hopper gave a little smile.

 

 


	2. In Which Eleven Catches the Flu

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For Eleven, it had been all sterile walls, white floors, and vaccinations. She had never been exposed to illness, at least not the physical kind, and she was not prepared for what her first bout of the Flu will feel like. She feels miserable. Hopper feels terrified.

_**In Which Eleven Catches the Flu [In Which Everything is Okay, pt 2/?]** _

* * *

**February 2, 1984. Wednesday.**

"Mmph."

Hopper rolled over, not paying any attention to the little noise he heard from his doorway.

" _Mmph."_ It said again, more forcefully.

Hopper pushed the pillow over his ears and burrowed slightly more into his covers. It was warm, and it wasn't covered with syrup and Legos like the rest of his house. He liked it in there.

"Aaa," The voice said again, and Hopper accepted his fate, beginning to open his eyes. That was the voice of a grumpy little girl who Hopper had no doubt was glaring at him from the doorway. Was it seven AM already?

"What's up, kid?" He groaned, squinting towards the doorway, one eye all scrunched up and the other barely open. First he saw the clock.

Not seven AM, but three AM.

And then he saw the grumpy little girl, who was standing in the doorway wrapped head to toe in blankets like a little burrito.

"Eleven, what the he**?" Hopper grunted, sitting up on his elbow. "It's three in the fu**ing morning."

"Mm." She said in response, and began to move towards Hopper's bed. "Feel funny."

"Funny how, chief?" He sighed. Hopper actually opened his eyes all the way this time, and really took in the way his housemate looked. It took him a minute to piece together what was going on. The dark circles. The flushed cheeks. The gaping mouth. He sat up fully then and looked straight at Eleven. She shrugged, and Hopper could see her lip quiver.

" _Funny."_ She insisted, and pulled the blanket tight around her shoulders. "Cold. Heavy." She pointed to her stomach. "Bad," and then to her nose, "No breathe," and then to her head, "Ow."

She waited a moment, before adding on, "Dying."

As dire as this situation might be, Hopper almost let out a laugh.

"No no no, not  _dying. Sick._ Just sick, that's all." He smiled, taking a deep breath as he stood and faced the cold with his bare stomach and legs. He yanked on a shirt so he wouldn't be walking around in  _just_ his boxers, and Eleven coughed. It was harsh and deep in her chest, and she whined a little afterwards. "C'mon, bugger. Let's take your temperature."

Hopper would be lying if he said he wasn't scared. With all this kid's been through, and he was sure he barely knew the half of it, this could be tough.

He*l, with all  _he's_ been through, this could be tough.

He pushed that thought out of his mind and tousled her hair at the door. "Come with me, kid. Nothing I can do with you all the way over there."

He heard her little feet pattering behind him and yawned. Maybe he would get some sleep if he could get her back down first. He stopped and opened the tiny utility closet door, beginning to rummage through it for the thermometer.

"What is sick?" He heard her mumble, and he didn't stop his search.

"Sick is when you feel bad. Like when you're tired or hurting or some shi-" He stopped himself. Censored himself like he hadn't thought to do earlier. "Some stuff like that. You take medicine and rest up to get it to stop so you feel better again."

Silence.

"Like home from work? You say tired and take white…" Eleven paused, struggling to think of the word. "med-i-cine to stop hurt?"

Hopper chuckled.

"Nah, I'm not sick then, kid. Just exhausted. Sick is when you're even more exhausted than that. Like you are."

Hopper knelt down to Eleven's height and motioned for her to open her mouth. She did so and he stuck the thermometer in. "Make sure this is under your tongue, yeah? It's gonna tell me how sick you are."

He waited a moment, thinking. This could be bad. If she needed to be hospitalized, he had no way to do that. If she had a disease, he couldn't cure her. If she was -

Stop.

Breathe.

Best just to evaluate how she's feeling now. He'll cross the other bridge when he gets there.

"If one is how you feel when…He*l, when you eat eggos, and ten is how you felt in the bath last November, how are you now? What number?"

Eleven thought.

She felt awful. Her head was throbbing, and her throat felt tickly, and she couldn't breathe out of her nose. Her limbs were wobbly, and she felt sweaty and her stomach kept doing flips like it would jump right out of her mouth if she opened it.

But she wasn't upset. Hopper was right here; he was taking care of her, and she was in a blanket and not out in the cold, and she was wearing little star pajamas that made her feel cozy and happy and safe, and so she wasn't that bad. She held up three fingers, because nothing could be as good as eating eggos, she wasn't feeling perfect, but she was happy enough. Three was good.

"Just three?" Hopper raised an eyebrow before the thermometer beeped. He took it from the girl's mouth and looked at it. "Think a little higher. You're at 103, kid." The blank expression in her clouded eyes told him to elaborate. "That's pretty bad."

She frowned, her hazy eyes looking right past Hopper and not making eye contact. Her shoulders slumped, and she coughed, big, loud, and heavy without covering her mouth.

"Don't feel good."

Hopper sighed.

"No wonder. How about we get you back to bed, huh? I can get you something to drink, maybe something to eat if you want it, but that's… That's it for right now. I'll go out on the way to work and see what else I can get you." He tried to sound hopeful and not worried, but in reality he was worried. Very worried. 103 was high for a child as small as she was. And her voice was much deeper than it should be. And her knees were wobbling so much he wasn't sure if she could stand much longer.

He reached out and caught her before she hit the ground.

"Woah, there, little lady. Come on." He picked her up, putting a leg on either side of his torso and cupping her back and bottom, careful not to hold her bridal style - he knew from experience she would become stressed and plagued with those awful memories if he did. She leaned her head onto his neck, and he winced. She was  _burning._

Carefully, Hopper put the girl back on her bed. She clung to him like a koala bear, her legs and arms tightening around his neck and back, and she made little whimpering noises.

"No, no," She whined. She was trying to hold on, but her grip faltered and she slipped onto her bed. Hopper saw the beginnings of tears in her deep brown eyes and could tell she was frightened. He knew that high fever could cause paranoia. He knew that from experience, too. And so he sat on the bed next to her and grasped her hand in his own.

"Hey there, kid. Hey. I'm not goin' anywhere. Alright? You're safe. I'm right here with you, and I won't let anything happen." He paused a minute and grimaced. He knew he needed to try and get her strength up. "Actually, do you want something to eat? Some water maybe?"

Eleven made a face, but Hopper ignored it. He reached down and lifted her up again, grimacing at the crackling sound his back made when he straightened. He moved into the living room and plopped her onto the couch, shushing her as she began to breathe heavily.

"I'm just going to the kitchen, girlie. Just right over here, no need to cry, I'm two feet away." He kept glancing back at her as he moved into the kitchen, making sure to stay within sight. He opened the fridge. "You want some Eggos? I know it's kind of early for breakfast, but…"

He knew she needed something more. She was weak. Carbs didn't fix that. But, then again, she was sick, and being sick meant, for a kid anyways, lying at home, watching cartoons, and eating your favorite foods. And she needed sustenance, even if it was three am. He heard her sniff.

"Eggos." She said, but she didn't sound very sure. Still, Eggos were better than nothing and so he took the box out of the fridge and took two of the waffles out, putting them straight into the toaster.

Within seven minutes, Hopper had filled a glass with tap water and ice, had put the now-toasted waffles on a plate, and was sitting next to his girl on the couch.

"You gotta eat something." He coaxed, setting the plate and glass beside him and leaning over to help Eleven sit. She flopped up with his hand, barely putting forth any effort at all. All her weight was on his hand, but he couldn't seem to mind. He reached out with his other and took the plate of waffles, setting it in Eleven's lap.

"Eat." He said. She reached out with a shaky hand and picked up a waffle before looking up at Hopper with pleading eyes. She didn't look well.

"Please, Eleven. You need to eat something. He**, if you want something else I'll get it for you, but you gotta get your strength up."

Eleven looked at her waffle, then looked at Hopper, then back to her waffle. She then took a tiny nibble and placed it back on the plate. She made a face.

"Feel funny." She said again, a pout on her lips. Hopper sighed and grabbed her water, holding it out.

"Drink."

She shook her head.

"Feel funny," She reiterated.

Oh, sh*t.

"You gonna throw up on me, kid?"

Eleven looked confused for a brief moment before her eyes squeezed shut. She gave a little cough that sounded more like a sob as she leaned forward.

"Okay, yep, you are, c'mon, let's go, up, up, up,"

* * *

Eleven didn't know what was happening other than that it was  _bad._ She had never felt quite this bad before, and it was strange. She had heard Mike talk about being  _Sick,_ over the radio. He explained that he was sick, and that that meant his throat hurt and he couldn't talk much.

But Eleven didn't feel like that, not quite.

Her throat  _did_ hurt, that was true. But her eyes felt watery and itchy, too, like she wanted to scratch at them until they fell out and  _stopped._ And she had this weird tickle in her throat that made her want to cough and cough and cough so that it would go away. And her nose was dripping.  _Everywhere._ She couldn't seem to get it to stop. And - and her tummy felt funny, like she had eaten too much, or like she was nervous, but she wasn't because she hadn't eaten since lunch the day before and there was no reason to be nervous. Hopper told her that was because she was full of  _mucus,_ and that  _mucus_ could make you  _throw up._ Eleven didn't have the energy to ask what those words meant yet, and so she filed them away in the back of her mind and just leaned against him where they sat in front of the toilet. She didn't quite know why they were there, but Hopper was letting her sit in his lap and lean on him, and he was petting her hair, so she didn't mind.

"We can't sit here all day, girlie." Hopper said gently, lifting Eleven's chin with his fingers. She wouldn't meet his gaze, and he felt how hot her skin was in his hands. Panic shot through him, but he pushed it down as much as he could. "Just go on and get it over with. You'll feel better if you do. There's no use in just sitting here in this nasty bathroom."

Eleven didn't know what he was  _talking_ about. If there was no use, then why were they sitting here anyways? She started to stand up, because apparently sitting in here was no use, and maybe that meant it was  _stupid._ But as she stood, she started to feel… funny.

A not good funny.

A  _bad_ funny.

She whined, just a small bit, and her hands instinctively went to her tummy. She didn't know what was going on. Could she be hungry? Her tummy twisted painfully again, and she bit back a whimper. Hopper sighed from his place on the floor where he sat criss-cross, his chin resting on his hand.

"It's alright," He tried, failing utterly to soothe.

Eleven didn't even hear him. Her stomach was gurgling, an unpleasant sensation that left her feeling tingly all over, and her legs felt wobbly, like how they felt after she ran as fast as she could from the lab.

She didn't  _like it._

She whined again, and this time noticed that her mouth was starting to water.

"C'mon, kid," Hopper sighed, thinking maybe she wanted privacy, and Eleven felt a hand on her back. It barely processed. "I can leave if you need me to."

Almost instantly, without missing a beat, Eleven felt her stomach convulse and it made her curl in on herself where she was standing. She barely heard Hopper say, "Oh, sh*t!" as he flung the toilet lid open and moved to steady her. And then she was on her knees, and a painful substance was coming from inside her and it was  _everywhere._ She began to cry as her stomach convulsed again and more came up, and she began to sob as it happened a  _third_ time. It felt as if every muscle in her body was crumpling, like they were all going to curl so tightly in on themselves that Eleven would die. She didn't like that thought, and as soon as she had it she felt her body convulse again - but with something different than illness. She was crying, sobbing in earnest, and her sobs were  _loud._ She was nearly screaming in her tears, and Hopper couldn't help but feel a _wful._

His housemate - his  _girl,_ one not quite as close to his heart as Sara, but getting there _-_ was leaned over the toilet bowl, gripping it for dear life. She was sobbing so much that tears had soaked her face entirely, and snot was dripping from her nostrils all the way past her lips. And then there was the vomit - Eleven had missed, ever so slightly as she fell to her knees, and now the foul substance was all over her lips, her hands, the lid of the seat and a little bit on the floor beside her. After a few moments, there was something new entirely to the situation - blood.

Blood was dripping freely from her nose, and now even her ears were starting up as she vomited again, and every item in the room began to knock around. Their toothbrushes fell to the ground, and the shower curtain tugged itself right off the curtain rod, and the shaving cream fell off the counter and spurted a little onto the ground, landing a bit on Eleven's socked foot. She was covered, in all kinds of mess, and Hopper could do nothing but watch as she threw up what had to be the last of her stomach's contents. He patted her back and rubbed it and held her hair out of her face and did everything he used to do with Sara as Eleven cried and cried, and eventually, she began to settle.

The blood didn't stop.

"Hey, shh, shh, you're alright," Hopper tried as Eleven leaned shakily back against him, seemingly against her will. She was feeling a little better, now - at least her tummy was. She was grateful, but also scared. Actually, terrified. "You just threw up, baby, you're okay,"

She looked up at Hopper with hazy, clouded up eyes and he barely was able to hide his grimace at the mess covering her face from top to bottom. "You missed a little there, kiddo,"

He didn't miss her lip beginning to quiver, and quickly tried to avert the situation.

"Hey, no, no tears, I'm not mad." Eleven looked up at him again.

"P-promise?" She whispered, and her voice was hoarse and crackled as she spoke. Hopper smiled and gave her a reassuring squeeze.

"Promise. And I also promise that you have got to be cleaned up. Right now."

Eleven looked down and frowned. She noted that there was blood all down the front of her shirt, and she put a hand to her nose to check, and then one to her ears. Yes, that was where it came from. She also saw how damp her clothes were, and she wasn't quite sure if it was from sweat or tears or a mix of both. Finally - and most regretfully - she noticed the viscous liquid that had stung her throat was staining the cuffs of her shirt, and she felt big, crocodile tears well up in her eyes. These were her  _favorite pajamas,_ and the stain was less than becoming. It was an odd, unappetizing shade of  _orange,_ and it smelled yucky and it made her stomach churn just looking at it again. However, before bringing

up the fact that her clothes were soiled, something was more important. She frowned and looked at Hopper, a question burning the back of her mind. A  _fear._

"Dying?" She asked softly as Hopper started to stand up, lifting her with him.

"Nah, kid. No. Not dying." He set her shakily onto her own to feet, and she gripped his shirt before her knees could give. "You just threw up, that's all. Kids do that when they get sick."

"Star pajamas." Eleven said sadly, looking down at her clothes. Hopper followed her gaze.

"Don't worry about it. Tell you what." Hopper squatted to where he was a little shorter than Eleven, and she had to look down to make eye contact. "Why don't you go ahead and take those off, okay? I'll… I'll go grab your towel, and I'll go start 'em up in the washer real quick. I'll start you a bath, too, and you can go ahead and wash up."

Eleven began to take off her shirt before Hopper had even left, ignoring  _privacy,_ and struggled to get it off over her head. She felt a little better, now. In fact, her tummy felt better completely. But everything else did not. Her head was absolutely throbbing now, even worse than before, and she couldn't seem to breathe out of her nose, and her head felt  _heavy,_ like it would fall off if she moved too much. She didn't feel well at all, but she wasn't  _throwing up,_ so that was okay. She threw her shirt in the floor and steadied herself against the wall when something else strange overtook her body without her permission.

A great, hearty,  **loud** sneeze ripped through her body, and she convulsed forward with it, whipping her curls around and dizzying her. And then she heard Hopper shout, but she didn't worry about it. He didn't sound hurt. Instead she sniffed and wiped at her nose with her hand, frowning when she remembered that it would come back covered in blood and snot and  _throw up,_ and started to work at getting her pants off.

Hopper was caught completely off guard by every glass in the cupboard falling out at him at full force.

He was standing in the kitchen, fixing Eleven a cup of water, because after that Linda Blair act she pulled, she probably needed it. He was standing in the kitchen, in front of the sink, tap on, when all of a sudden every glass in their inventory began to slide with a startling jolt out of the cupboard.

He moved faster than he had in the past 25 years to catch as many glasses as he could in his arms, and he was very proud to say that he only missed two.

But he was still  _confused as he**._ Was there a miniature earthquake? He highly doubted it, and was still pondering when he remembered the blood. Uh oh. Eleven.

"Hey, Ellie?" He said cautiously, walking with the single glass of water back to the bathroom. He made a slight detour, to grab the promised towel, before peeking his head into the bathroom. "Eleven?"

She was sitting on the tub, dressed only in the slightly-too-big pink panties that had come out of a dollar store pack Hopper purchased a few months ago, shaking a little bit. Blood streamed out of her nose and ears, and was covering her shoulders now. Her eyes were hazy, unfocused, and it looked like just breathing was causing her a great deal of trouble. He could see the remnants of vomit on her face and hands, and the traces of tears cutting through the blood and bile. She didn't look well at all, but at least she wasn't puking her guts out anymore. He noticed the water was on in the tub, but she didn't look like she was about to get in.

"You okay, kid?" Hopper asked cautiously. Eleven looked up suddenly, as if taken from a trance, and it looked as if she were about to speak.

But then, with three heavy breaths and her shoulders raising a little, she sneezed. It was a sound too great to be expected from such a small child, and as it happened snot shot out of her nose as well as large amounts of blood, but that wasn't all.

Every roll of toilet paper, glass bobble, and bottle of soap from the shelves in the room fell violently to the ground with a great  _thud._ She sneezed again, even more harsh, and Hopper could practically hear it scraping her sore throat as more snot and blood came, and even more items fell and shattered from around the room. He quickly moved to shield his mostly naked little girl from it, and as he did she sneezed a third time, and this time the entire room shook, or at least, every item in it did.

With this third sneeze, the greatest and most painful sounding of the bunch, there was a large surge in power. The lights flickered, items fell, and -

The bath faucet shot right out of the wall and hit the other side, cracking the tile the tiniest bit.

"Holy sh*t!" Hopper breathed, and Eleven moaned against his chest. He let go the slightest bit, now kneeling down in front of her. She looked a _wful._

"Mmm," She groaned, and sniffed a great sniff trying to breathe. She breathed back out hurriedly, from her nose, because apparently something had tickled it. Hopper grimaced a little at the mess, but hid it well, instead reaching over to the toilet and grabbing a few squares of toilet paper.

"Go on and blow your nose, kid," He said, holding it out to her. Eleven just stared, and Hopper sighed for what felt like the ten thousandth time that day. He just simply couldn't believe how sheltered she had been - how many things she wasn't exposed to. He put the paper up to her nose and pinched the slightest bit.

"Blow."

She obeyed, and Hopper took the tissue from her when she finished, wadding it and tossing it in the waste basket. "Any better?"

Eleven shrugged, and Hopper frowned at how pink her cheeks were under the sick on her face. He had to fix this.

"Alright, girlie. I'm gonna.. See if I can fix this. You think you can handle grabbing a washcloth from under the sink?" Hopper gestured to the broken faucet, and Eleven nodded, slow and sure. Within ten minutes, Hopper had the faucet fixed (after being thoroughly soaked), the washing machine started, and the bath filled. He turned off the water and turned to Eleven who was sitting cross legged in the floor, her feverish face leaned heavily upon Hopper's leg.

"All done," He said, standing from his place on the edge of the tub. She startled a little, sitting up, and Hopper assumed that she had fallen asleep. "Now its a little cold, because we gotta get that fever down, but it's not too bad." Hopper stuck his hand in the tub, just for good measure. It was lukewarm, not too cold but not too hot either. "I'll be right out here in the living room, okay?"

Eleven looked up at him and frowned. She looked afraid, just a little, and she shied away from the tub, her shoulders going up to her ears. Hopper gave her a look.

"What?"

Eleven whined a little, and instantly Hopper got it.

Of  _course._

It was a  _bath._

"Not alone…" Eleven whimpered, barely audible as her lower lip went into the tiniest pout. Hopper knelt to her level quickly.

"Hey, shh, shh, it's alright. I'm not gonna make you find anybody, or go to that place again, or anything. It's just a bath. A normal, get yourself cleaned up bath." Eleven looked up at him with those big brown eyes, and he sighed. "If you need me to, I'll stay with you, okay? How's that sound?"

Eleven nodded enthusiastically, but stopped when she realized how it was making the feeling in her tummy come back the slightest bit. "Please."

And so he did. He stood carefully at her side and let her balance on him as she stepped into the warm water, and he stayed seated right beside the tub on the floor as she bathed.

"Here, let me help," He said softly, reaching over to her with a wash rag. She was having trouble cleaning her face. Hopper gently scrubbed the vomit from her chin and the tear streaks from her cheeks, but stopped when he noticed the blood.

The blood still hadn't stopped, and Hopper held his breath as Eleven wiped at it with her hand.

"I'm all good." She said, repeating the phrase she had heard Hopper say many times before when he was very obviously  _not_ all good. However, Hopper said nothing, instead making a mental note to keep a very close eye on that.

If the bleeding didn't stop, she could pass out.

If it still didn't stop, she could need a blood transfusion.

If she needed a blood transfusion, she had to go to the hospital.

_She couldn't go to the hospital._

Hopper pulled the emergency break on his train of thought manually and took a very deep breath. He couldn't jump to conclusions. Not right now.

As Eleven finished her bath and was falling asleep in the rapidly cooling water, Hopper got a towel down and held it out for her, so she could step out and wrap herself in it.

He was fully aware that she was twelve years old and much too old to be babied like this, but he couldn't bring himself to care. Eleven was different than most. She was a little more needy, and would pick up habits usually intended for younger children, but only when she felt comfortable letting her guard down. If she didn't, she could take care of herself better than a full grown man with a full length beard and muscles bigger than a gallon bottle of Coke. And, as Hopper knew from experience, it was rare to catch her with her guard down. Surprisingly enough, her guard was down currently, and she cuddled into the towel and shut her eyes, swaying a little on her feet. He knew she was twelve, or at the very least almost twelve, but he also knew how different her thought process was than other twelve year olds'. And that was okay.

"You wanna head back to bed?" Hopper asked, glancing fleetingly at the clock. Sheesh. Four fifteen AM. They had been up for an hour and fifteen minutes, and he had to be up for work in three hours. Maybe if he could get her back down comfortably, he could get a quick nap before heading out. Not that he wanted to leave her at home, not like this.

Eleven shrugged.

"I would like to have more blankets, please." She said softly, and Hopper almost chuckled. He knew she understood full sentences, and understood how to put them together, but he also knew how much she hated doing that. Eleven was unique, and she very much preferred to communicate nonverbally, even if technically she understood the complexities of the English language. Well. Some of them. About half. Less than half.

She could talk a little, and that's what he supposed he was getting at. She could talk a little, but she preferred to talk a whole lot less, and Hopper was very amused and interested as to why she decided to use a complete sentence here. He almost laughed, but then.. Then he realized why she was being so formal. She was used to only being rewarded with basic necessities when she did well. When she excelled. She knew Hopper was teaching her words. She knew he wanted to help her talk. She thought he would only keep her warm if she asked using what she was taught. The thought made him sick.

"You can talk however you want, you know that?" Hopper said softly, and he knelt in front of her to warm her arms with his hands. He scrubbed gently up and down on her bicep over the towel, looking keenly at eyes that didn't meet his.

"Cold." She said, and he didn't miss the way her lip quivered just a little. "Please?" She added, and he hated how she made eye contact, because that was something they had been working on, too. He made a mental note to stop pushing that one. At all.

"C'mon." He walked out of the open door and frowned at how cold the house was. With a fever  _and_ this weather, it was no wonder she was freezing. He walked maybe five more feet before he realized she wasn't following. He turned back, and she was standing in the doorway wrapped in the towel, shivering and looking at her feet.

"What?" He said, concern showing in his voice. He looked at her and furrowed his brow. "You gonna puke again?"

Eleven sighed, a heavy sigh that showed her annoyance in not understanding simple terms. "Puke?" She asked, and Hopper grimaced at how raspy her voice was.

"Throw up. You feel like you're gonna throw up, kid?"

Eleven shrugged.

They sat at the toilet for what seemed like hours, but in reality it was only thirty more minutes. Eleven didn't like the fact that even after  _throwing up,_ after doing that awful thing so many times, the feeling in her tummy just kept coming back. She kept count. That was thirteen different times her stomach had convulsed, and five times leaning over the toilet bowl. Three times she had heard Hopper curse. Four different times she had started to sob, and leaned back into Hopper's warm embrace. Twice he had reached up with toilet paper to wipe her face of vomit and the blood that was still dripping at a slow pace. She did not count how many objects she heard fall down around the house, because there were too many. She didn't know how to stop her brain from shaking everything just a little bit.

After the fifth time she leaned over, and after her stomach convulsed three more times, she leaned back and breathed heavily. She felt lighter now, even though her entire body was tingly and weak, and did not feel like she would be sick again, because the last two convulsions had not even brought anything up. She was empty, and she felt it. Empty of food, empty of water, empty of even  _feeling._ All she wanted was to go to sleep. She turned to face Hopper, and he sighed a sad, sad sigh.

"You alright, baby girl?" He asked. Eleven thought, hard and long, and then she nodded. She was alright.

"All good." She said. Hopper nodded and stood, grabbing a washcloth from the basket above the toilet and taking it to the sink. He wet it with cool water before crouching by Eleven again.

"I'm going to wipe your face, yeah?" He said softly, making sure she knew what he was doing. She gave a little grunt of confirmation, and he gently cleaned the blood and vomit from her face.

"You don't feel like you're going to throw up anymore?"

Eleven nodded. Her tummy finally felt better, in an odd way. It felt empty, but that was better than the nasty feeling it had earlier. She nodded a second time. "Yes."

"Alright then, kiddo. You wanna get back in bed?"

Hopper saw her nod before he looked again at the clock. Four forty five. He**. He had to be up in two hours, give or take some. Accepting his fate, he moved to the sink and wet Eleven's toothbrush before putting the minty paste on it. He held it out to her, and she cocked her head.

"This will get the nasty taste out of your mouth."

Eleven nodded and took the brush, and as she started cleaning her teeth Hopper walked over to the laundry basket and began looking for his daughter a change of clothes. He settled on a pair of superman underwear (some she had seen on the TV and asked if he would  _please_ get for her) and white long-sleeved floor length nightgown that would keep her warm. He grabbed a pair of socks, too, and marveled briefly at how tiny they were. She was a very little girl. A very little and very  _sick_ girl. Hopper hoped that the vomiting was over, because he didn't know what he would do if she got dehydrated. He walked back into the small bathroom and placed her clothes beside her on the tile.

"I'm gonna go grab you some more water. Spit and rinse then get dressed, okay?"

Eleven nodded, and Hopper grabbed the old cup and moved to the kitchen. He was glad that, now that Eleven was more aware of her situation, she seemed less clingy. Or maybe the fever was just getting so bad she wasn't thinking much anymore. He really couldn't tell.

He returned to her within three minutes, and she was seated haphazardly on the bathroom rug. She looked drained.

"You ready to get back in bed?" Hopper asked softly, looking down at his sick daughter. She looked up at him with hazy eyes before reaching her arms up. He quirked an eyebrow.

"Can't walk." She mumbled, and Hopper hated just how rough her voice sounded. She coughed then, and it was a deep, wracking cough that shook her whole body - and the whole house. Something shattered in the other room. Hopper sighed, but didn't dwell much on it. Something else needed his full attention right now.

"Okay, up ya go," He grumbled, leaning down and grabbing El under her arms. He lifted her up onto his hip and she leaned her face in the place between his face and neck. "Sheesh, kid, you are just burning up." He mumbled to himself. No way was this healthy - it had to be higher than it was earlier, and that was already pretty high. Too high.

He put that out of his mind, too, and Eleven was asleep before he tucked her in.

Hopper did not sleep any more than thirty minutes at a time more that night. Well. That morning. His last two hours of sweet, sweet sleep were spent tossing and turning in his bed, trying hard not to listen to the coughs and whines coming from his feverish daughter from the next room over. He couldn't listen, because if he did, all he would think of would be Sara when it all started to go downhill. It had started like something simple, and he and his wife had thought nothing of it - Sara would be fine soon, because children always are. Except she wasn't. She kept getting worse, and worse, and worse until one day, she just  _wasn't_ anymore. One day, it all stopped, and that was the day that she - That was when she -

Hopper sat up abruptly, startled from sleep for the third time in the past hour. Nope, not going there. Not tonight. Or, rather, not today. It was 6:32 AM, only thirty minutes before he normally rose, and so he decided it wouldn't hurt anything to get up now, even if he was exhausted to the core. He couldn't stand lying there in relative silence any longer, because if he did, he may start to fully panic, and Eleven didn't deserve that.

Except, he couldn't get up, because it was only now that his brain caught up to his awareness that he realized Eleven was lying beside him, her hot little body pressed as close as possible to his side. He frowned, because her fever still felt way too high for his taste, but he wasn't too distressed because she felt a little cooler than she had two hours ago.

Hopper slowly eased back down into a lying position and turned on his side to look at Eleven. Even though she was sick, and her cheeks were flushed with bright red fever, and her lips were parted greatly from the effort of breathing, she still looked so peaceful. There was a chill in the air from the cold February air outdoors and the lack of central heat and air, but it wasn't cold - only chilly enough to want to stay under the covers for as long as possible. Paired with that were the pale pink and gold sunrise hues that were being cast into the room from his partially boarded up window, directly illuminating the tiny little curls that framed Eleven's flushed face. Hopper smiled just thinking about how much her hair had grown in the last month and a half, the dark brown loops now soft and bouncy on the top of her head, just long enough to stick a bow in if desired.

Hopper fought the desire to kiss the twelve-year-old's forehead. Instead he reached a loving hand out and petted some of the unruly curls down, and she stirred.

"Mm," She grumbled, her peaceful face immediately going into one of pain. She curled in on herself and whined, her little lips going into a pout. Hopper tensed.

"Hop," Eleven mumbled. She cracked her eyes open at him and sniffed. "Don't feel good,"

Hopper laughed a tiny pained laugh and reached out to pet her again.

"No wonder. Any better than earlier?" Hopper asked. He saw her face screw up even more into that little concentrating face before she responded. She shook her head.

"Belly," She said simply. Paused. Continued. "Chest. Eye-balls."

She was listing where it hurt, Hopper realized, and he gave a sympathetic little sigh.

"I know, darlin', I know. It hurts everywhere, huh." He said, and Eleven nodded. He saw little tears in her eyes as her chin quivered. She hadn't opened her eyes again. "Go on back to sleep, Ellie, okay? I gotta go to work, but…" He trailed off. He didn't want to go to work. At least, he didn't think he could right now. Not when Eleven was this bad.

On the other hand….

"I gotta go to work, but I'll be home soon, okay? You just send a message to me if you need anything. Just h - e - l - p." He knocked on her forehead the morse-code message, and that earned him the tiniest little giggle. "And I'll be right home. Got it?"

Eleven's eyebrows unscrunched a little, and Hopper knew she was fading fast.

"Got it." She mumbled, her voice sleepy and far away.

Hopper gave in and kissed her forehead before he left.

"Hey, Flo," Hopper sighed, walking into the office. He didn't bother to hang up his hat. He had rehearsed this a hundred times on the way there, and he wasn't going to stay long enough to mess it up. He took a deep breath. "Good morning."

Flo looked up from her desk and gave him a very, very wary look.

"You're early. And you said good morning." She narrowed her eyes. "What do you need this time?"

Hopper sighed and gave her his best "you caught me" smile.

"What can I say," He shrugged, "You always know exactly what's going on."

Flo crossed her arms and gave him  _the look,_ and Hopper decided it would be best to continue.

"So my sister had a, uh, a family emergency yesterday morning," He started, trying to remember the story he came up with. He had to get it perfect - even if it was unlikely, any hole in his story could alert the lab of Eleven's presence. "So she left her little girl with me, and uh.. She came down with some bug last night, and I've been up all night with her."

Flo gave him a "yeah sure" look. "And?"

"And I need to go back and keep an eye on 'er. And.." He stopped. Paused for dramatic effect. Sighed and looked at his feet as if he were embarrassed. Well, he really was a little embarrassed of his lack of knowledge, because he had been a dad once. Actually, he had been a Daddy once, and it embarrassed him to think of just how fast all of his prior knowledge had left him. "Flo, I have no clue how to take care of a kid anymore. What do I even need to feed her?"

Flo laughed. Straight out laughed, right in Hopper's face. If the story had been true, Hopper may have been offended deep in his heart. But it wasn't, so he wasn't either.

"Jim Hopper, you never fail to surprise me." She said, shaking her head. He gave her a face. "Alright, hold your horses,"

And then Flo was making Hopper a list of what to get from the store, and he hadn't even asked.

"Go ahead and put a trash can by the bed, don't want any messes if she's sick again. Kids always have more in 'em than you'd expect. And don't you dare get her that offbrand Sprite, the real stuff is what that poor little girl deserves. Mama's gone, sick as a dog, and stuck with ol'  _Jim Hopper_ for the week. Send her my condolences." Flo was laughing, and Hopper smiled back at her. She had no idea how accurate her description was, other than the fact that it wasn't just a week. It was indefinite.

"Thanks again, Flo," Hopper grinned as the older lady ushered him out the door. Flo smiled back and patted the taller man's back.

"Don't you worry your pretty little head about it, Hop. Just be sure to let her watch something other than your old soaps," She winked at the last part, and Hopper was sure she knew something she shouldn't, but she kept going before he could ponder it. "And don't forget to tell her I send my love,"

Hopper smiled at her as she closed the door, and that smile instantly faded as he looked down at the list she gave him. He had to get these things and get home  _fast._ It was starting to snow, just a little bit, and he had to get home before the roads got bad or there was no way Eleven would ever forgive him. Or remember to blow her nose.

Or make it to the toilet to throw up.

Hopper unlocked his car quickly and threw his keys into the ignition as he eyeballed the list.

_1\. 2 liter of Sprite_

_Saltine crackers_

_Nyquil_

_Get that girl a teddy or something, she needs a good surprise today_

_Campbell's Chicken and Noodle Soup_

_Her favorite candy to give her when she starts to feel a little better_

_Extra-Soft 2 ply toilet paper because you'll run out of tissues real fast_

_For the love of all things Holy, get that baby some Pepto_

_Jello and applesauce, she may be able to hold them down a little better than other things_

_And Jim Hopper, don't you dare come back here tomorrow unless that little girl has gone home._

Jim smiled from his place in the front seat and started the engine. Flo always would look out for him and anyone he was with. She had even grown fond of Joyce, or at least pretended to, when the two were obviously sweet on each other. Hopper put his foot to the gas and started off to the supermarket with the smile yet to fade from his face.

It was nine AM when Hopper arrived back home, and the temperature outside was dropping rapidly. On top of the items on Flo's list, he had also purchased a space heater to place in Eleven's room, because there was no way she was warm enough in there with only three throw blankets and long sleeved pajamas. He was about to knock when he realized Eleven probably wasn't in a position where she could open the door, and so he thought better of it and fished the only existing key out of his pocket. There were a few difficult locks, but he was able to manage it - meaning later he'd have to up his game on the protection of this house, but fine for now. He stepped in with his bags and shut the door instantly to block out the cold.

"Ellie, I'm back," He shouted. It was a soft shout, and he was greeted with nothing but a peculiar sneeze, one that was both loud and small at the same time, and one that knocked the unlocked-door back open behind him. He shut it and looked around at the mess, seeing nothing but fallen and smashed items, including, but not limited to, plates, bowls, a lamp or two, every book under their ownership, and a few magazines ripped to shreds. Hopper was sure that with the intensity of Eleven's sneezing and vomiting she had broken every dish within a three mile radius, or at least caused some what of a ruckus. Hopper turned the locks and walked quietly into his room, where he found Eleven curled up under every blanket he owned (No doubt brought there herself without moving a muscle) and with a thumb stuck in her mouth. Blood was dripping freely down her red face, but it was slowed and clotting. That would explain why she didn't look very distraught anymore; she was starting to heal. Hopper walked over and sat on the bed beside her, setting his bags down on the floor. He petted her curls gently away from her sweaty forehead and she stirred, fever clouded eyes looking up and barely meeting his. She quickly plopped her thumb from her mouth, tucking the blankets up around her neck more.

"Hey, sweet girl," He smiled. She blinked. "I got some things for you,"

Hopper then leaned over and picked up the bear before wiggling it at his twelve year olds face. She giggled weakly and he pushed it into her arms before moving to the next thing. Hopper smiled, too, because her fever seemed to be much lower than it was earlier. The worst had to be over, and he was 98% positive now that she would be alright compared to the 45% of last night.

Within ten minutes, he had her up and was slowly coaxing her to eat applesauce (This time stopping when she said she couldn't stomach any more), had wiped the blood from her face, and was settled in reading her a story.

She wasn't better yet, not anywhere close to it. But she soon would be, and Hopper knew that. He and his little girl would be just fine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My poor sick bean. ;^(


	3. In Which An Old Habit is Revisited

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Of course, Hopper wasn't really all that surprised, deep down. In the single day she had been under his care, he had noticed that a number of her actions seemed odd for her age. This was just one more to add onto the list, and he couldn't find himself to be upset.

**_In Which an Old Habit is Revisited [In Which Everything is Okay, pt 3/?]_ **

* * *

**December 28, 1983. Wednesday.**

**November 6, 1984. Tuesday.**

It started the first time she felt safe and warm in Hopper's home.

Or, at least, that's when it was noticed.

That day, when Hopper found her in the woods, cold, and wet, and hungry, he had instantly brought her to that little cabin. Before they even began to clean, he had wrapped her snugly in a blanket and hugged her tight to his chest. She hesitated, but within a few moments Hopper felt her relax in his arms and, while not quite returning the embrace, he knew she was content.

After getting warmed up and Hopper feeding Eleven a squished up granola bar he had hidden away in his pocket, they had started to clean. After cleaning, Hopper had left Eleven on the couch in her blanket and had told her to "Stay here, I'm gonna go get us some real food."

He had first gone back to his home. He knew the water was working in the old cabin, but he wasn't sure if there were any toiletries left, and so he grabbed the essentials - towels, toilet paper, a tooth brush, washcloths, a half empty bottle of shampoo, and some socks.

And a six pack of beer from the fridge.

He then traveled to the closest grocery, where he picked up a second toothbrush, two throw blankets, a carton of juice, and the closest pair of child pajamas he could find (A ten dollar long sleeve sleep shirt decorated with a Garfield print, sized only by Hopper eyeballing them).

And some Eggos.

He returned in approximately an hour and a half. He piled his groceries into one arm, fished the key out of his pocket, and unlocked the door. It opened easily - he'd have to get that in check with more locks - and he was soon standing in his living room, completely surprised by what he saw.

There sat Eleven, curled up under her blanket and eyes shut completely, soft snores coming from her frail form, and pink splotches from finally getting warmed up dotting her pale cheeks.

And, tucked expertly into her mouth, was her right thumb.

Eleven, the girl who could kill a man just with her mind, who had nearly killed them all - and had saved them all - and who had survived on her own in the wilderness for who knows how long, was sucking her thumb.

Of course, Hopper wasn't really all that surprised, deep down. In the single day she had been under his care, he had noticed that some of her actions seemed odd for her age, like the way she rocked on her heels when she thought no one was looking or how she used tiny, misshapen sentences or how she seemed skittish like she was always afraid she'd get in trouble. He supposed that was from years of abuse, and he couldn't get onto her about it. It was sad, really, and he hated to see her try to act grown up when really she wasn't. He hoped he hadn't pressured her into doing so. `

And so he ignored her thumb sucking, ignored the way she ripped it away instantly and jumped when he spoke, and moved into the kitchen.

"C'mon, kid. Let's get some lunch."

From then on, Hopper was aware of Eleven sucking her thumb. And he was also aware of how afraid she was that he would catch her.

It made Hopper sick to think that someone could punish a child for something like that. He supposed part of Eleven starting to bring back the childish habit was to test the limits - would he punish her, or would he not mind? Of course, Hopper didn't mind, though he may have to put a stop to it soon because he can't afford to get her braces.

He would catch her with her thumb in her mouth while she was working on her math workbook, focusing hard on the numbers. He would catch her with it when she was watching Soap Operas at home when she thought he was busy. He would catch her with it whenever he peeked in to check on her at two am when he woke up afraid something had happened to her.

After a while, Eleven stopped hiding it.

It started slowly, one day when Hopper was reading to her at bedtime. Carefully, she moved her thumb to her mouth and tucked it in, eyes trained on her father figure. He didn't look up, though he did notice, and she took that as a good sign.

The next time they were sitting at breakfast. She had finished eating and was just kicking her feet waiting for instruction and he was reading the news paper. She plopped her thumb into her mouth quickly and waited to be admonished. She wasn't. She made a little grunting noise, just to see what would happen, and Hopper looked up. He locked eyes with her, and then went back to the newspaper.

The next time she was sitting in his lap and they were watching  _As The World Turns_  together. It was midday after lunch, and she was tired. Without even thinking, her thumb was between her lips and she was dozing off. Hopper shifted and she jumped a little before sheepishly looking up at him. He didn't take his eyes off the screen.

"Look, kid, if that's something that'll calm you down, go for it. You don't gotta hide it or keep trying to see if I'll get on to you, 'cause I won't. Now explain to me why the heck Paul was a baby three weeks ago and now he's a sixteen year old with an agenda."

From then on out, she wasn't afraid. She wasn't looking for approval, and she didn't worry about it anymore.

It wasn't often that her thumb found its way to her mouth, not now that she wasn't testing Hopper's limits, but now when she was panicking about something, or crying, or angry, she could calm herself down without help. Most of the time, of course.

Secretly, Hopper found it endearing. Sara sucked her thumb when she was little, and seeing Eleven do the same made him smile - she trusted him, and it was good that she had a way to calm down.

The last two weeks before That Night, Eleven had stopped. Hopper should have known that she was getting antsy just from that. That she wasn't quite sure if she could trust him anymore. He was breaking promises - he didn't mean to, but it would just happen. And he hadn't been able to read to her at night recently, because he was busy with paperwork he had forgotten about. He wasn't returning for dinner. And, as a result, Eleven had stopped calming herself down. She had stopped trying to suppress her tantrums by shoving her thumb in her mouth and breathing, had stopped using the habit as a reason not to cry because if she cried she couldn't breath from her nose, had stopped trusting him with seeing her fragile side.

He should have noticed.

The night Eleven closed the gate - That Night - Hopper had driven Eleven back to the Byers' after dropping by the Emergency Room. She had almost been asleep, Hopper noted, when he began speaking to her.

"You did so good, kid. You did so, so good. I am so proud of you, you know that?" He reached to ruffle her hair, but ended up just petting her instead, completely surprising himself with the sweet gesture. "You know that?" He repeated.

Eleven smiled the tiniest smile Hopper had ever seen and nodded once, her eyes tearful and exhausted, before she carefully tucked her right thumb in between her blood covered lips and closed her eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So please leave any comments or concerns, because hearing from you guys keeps me going. ;^)
> 
>  
> 
> also my bf told me to draw el sucking her thumb with her middle finger up at 'the haters' and i just  
> let me know if you want that


	4. In Which Everything is Okay

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The night had lasted so, so long, and Eleven was so, so tired. But she had done it. She had closed the gate, and now she was safe again. Safe with Hopper, and Joyce, and Mike, and the party. Safe with her family.

_In Which Everything is Okay [Pt. 4/?]_

* * *

**_November 7, 1984. Wednesday._ **

Hopper had to carry her out.

"I'm so proud of you, you did it," He would say as he cradled in the lift, her in his arms and going in and out of consciousness. The gate had been closed, but it had taken a tremendous amount of strength - more than Eleven had thought was possible from herself. And now she was really feeling the effects of that used strength and was not able to keep her brain focused and coherent. The amount of nausea Eleven had felt while closing the gate was overriding all of her senses now, and as soon as they stepped off the lift she pushed against Hopper blearily and vomited onto the tile. She knew Hopper was talking at that point, but wasn't able to piece together his words. She couldn't think as her stomach lurched and she was sick on the ground once more, but she couldn't feel it much, either. She felt numb, and the world felt fuzzy and unclear, like she wasn't really all there. Briefly in the back of her mind, Eleven pondered if maybe she wasn't, if maybe part of her was stuck somewhere, maybe in the upside down, but then she felt her knees give (She hadn't realized she was standing on her own now) and felt Hopper catch her under her arms, and she drifted off.

It was worrisome, Hopper could admit that. He piles her into the car carefully, setting her into the passenger seat and lightly shutting the door before climbing into the driver's seat himself.

He tried not to acknowledge the fact that tears had begun to form in his eyes.

**Joyce barely heard the knock on the door, she was so overtaken with joy to have her boy back.**

**They had returned from the cabin - From Hopper and Eleven's cabin - and Jonathon had carried Will to his room. Will insisted he was fine, and that he could walk, but Joyce could see how weak he still was. Pale and sweaty, with disoriented eyes and the hints of a fever playing on his cheeks and deep in his eyes. But he was smiling, and she was smiling, and everything was calm for now, and so it was okay.**

_**Calm.** _ **That was such a foreign concept. And yet, here she sat, curled up beside the bed with her head lying on the mattress and her hand tracing circles on Will's peaceful cheek, the picture of** _**calm** _ **.**

**Jonathon sat up beside Will, and his hand was petting the younger boy, too. Mike, Dustin, Lucas, and Max were sitting around the table, obviously wanting to talk but too afraid to.**

**Steve was pacing the kitchen.**

**Nancy was looking out the window.**

**It was quiet.**

**And then - And then the doorbell rang. Joyce took nearly five minutes to get to the door, but was overcome with relief as she did so.**

**Hopper carried Eleven in, and the girl was sleeping. Her thumb was in her mouth, but no one commented, and Joyce quickly helped Hopper get her settled on the couch.**

**She didn't comment on the tears streaking Hopper's face, either.**

**Mike was at Eleven's side in an instant, crying and holding her hand.**

" **She'll be fine," Hopper told him, but he sat at Eleven's feet and kept a hand on her, too.**

**Joyce came in with a warm damp washcloth and began working at the blood on Eleven's face. It was a lot of blood, and it was still coming in a slow trickle from her nose, but she wiped at it anyways. She carefully took the thumb from the girl's mouth and wiped it down, too, then carefully cleaned her lips. Gosh, the blood was all down her neck and was staining her teeth. Joyce thought briefly of trying to rouse Eleven, to help her bathe and get more comfortable because she had done good, so good, and needed to be warm and cozy and safe, but she thought better of it.**

**She wiped the remaining blood from her face, and let her sleep.**

**The kids all slept at her house that night, after calling their respective parents, and Joyce did not mind. Eleven stayed on the couch, and Mike fell asleep sitting up on the floor leaning on it, her hand clasped in his. Hopper slept at her feet, his head leaned against the back cushion. The others were strewn across the floor, all curled up together, not wanting to leave each other even for a moment. Will had insisted to go in there, too, curling up in the floor with his friends.**

**At some point in the night Eleven and Mike had ended up in the circle, too. Joyce and Hopper had somehow managed to curl up together on the couch. Jonathon and Nancy were wrapped in each other behind the couch.**

**Steve didn't sleep.**

**Steve stayed up all night and watched his kids, and he couldn't seem to bring himself to care that Nancy was with Jon, just that his kids were alright.**

**And they were happy.**

When El comes back after Closing the Gate, she is exhausted. She had been giving so much strength, and had felt so nauseous and weak that Hopper had to cradle her like a baby and keep her still to take her out because she could not walk and she could not keep her stomach settled. It takes two weeks to get her strength back.

During that time, El remains at the cabin, and barely moves from bed. They spend the night at the Byers's the night Of, because Eleven was too out of it to even imagine climbing into the car.

So they stay the night, and Eleven sleeps through breakfast. (Mike has wrapped her up 3 eggos in saran wrap and hands them to her when Hopper roused her to go home.) Hopper wakes El carefully at nine am, and she very slowly opens her eyes. Hop lifts her and carries her out, but while he is distracted and she is asleep in his arms, Mike kisses her forehead and sneaks the eggos under her arm. When they arrive Home, it is Home now, El is a little more awake. Her Eyes are up, but her body is weak - she sleeps the whole car ride home, and Hop has to help her into the house. He starts her a shower after setting her onto the couch, commenting and trying to be light about how she looked.

She can't find the strength to smile, but she likes it.

He helps her into the bathroom and makes sure she has something to hold onto before leaving her, leaving the door open. He has to return, however, to help her undress, simply because she cannot and when she starts to unbutton her jacket with shaky hands she cannot and begins to cry, and so Hopper helps her and she is grateful.

He stays right outside the door as she showers, or at least is there when she gets in and when she gets out, and she has to lean against the wall as she washes the makeup off and scrubs old shampoo into her hair. She breathes in the scent of musty strawberries and caramel that the shampoo leaves her with, and inside she smiles.  _Home_. She gets out of the shower and wraps the towel around her, and then calls for Hopper because she knows she cannot steady herself enough to dress. He helps, and it does not make her feel awkward even though this should be  _privacy._ He tries not to notice the deep cuts and bruises that litter her thin form.

She is dressed in a pale blue long sleeved pajama shirt with dark blue stars and matching pants; an outfit that Hopper found for cheap at the thrift store, when he picks her up and helps her to bed. She loves that outfit; its one that makes her feel like she is safe and  _home._ While she was washing, he has changed her sheets and put on 2 extra blankets and turned on the lamp. It is cozy and warm and not too bright when he tucks her in, and she likes it. She likes to be out of the makeup and gel, because now she feels like herself. Not Eleven. Not Jane. But  _El_. Her. She is El, because that name reminds her of the compassion in Mike's voice when she was given that name, and she loves it. Hopper sits by her and reads to her until she begins to doze, and then sits with her still. She's not sure if he has even left when she opened her eyes again at 3 with a fever growing behind her eyes.

**Joyce receives a phone call at three PM.**

**She has sent the boys and teenagers home by one, and now she is sitting beside Will on the couch while Jonathon sits at his other side, and they are watching television. Its warm and cozy, and Joyce is smiling without even realizing it. She loves her family, her sons, her home.**

**And then the phone rings, and she doesn't even stop herself from scowling.**

" **Probably Karen, Mike left his socks." She said, rolling her eyes because all she wanted to do was hug her sons,** _ **not**_ **talk on the phone, even if it was her son's best friend's mother wanting to get her son's precious stockings back. But she picks up the phone anyways, and it is not Karen.**

**It is Hopper.**

**He talks fast, and Joyce can barely understand what he is saying.**

**Eleven is hot, Joyce, she's just so hot and I don't know what to do. She's barely even** **conscious** **, and I can't get her to drink any water, and whenever she wakes up she's crying. I'm not ready for this, I'm not good enough for this, I need your** _**help.** _

**And within twenty minutes Joyce had piled her two sons into her car, Jonathon in the back with Will and making sure the pajama-clad child stays wrapped in ten different throw blankets, and is driving to Hopper's little cabin.**

She's just so  _tired_. By four Joyce is over and Hopper is not alone at her bedside, and Eleven smiles. She likes Joyce - She's the nice lady who hugged her and petted her in the bath a year ago. But Joyce looks worried. El doesn't know why - the words aren't making sense and all she wants to do is  _sleep._  She vaguely recalls when Jonathon, the nice boy with the funny face, comes in and says something to his mother, but he looks like he's laughing, and she picks out the name "Will" before she dozes again. She wakes up again and it is dark. Hopper is still at her side, and he is petting her and talking quietly to Joyce, who is standing in the doorway.

"No, no, don't worry, Will's doing fine, Hop. He's just asleep, and Jon's with him. I came to check on your little one."

Hopper shrugs, and Eleven realizes that neither of them know she's awake.

"Her fever's just so high, Joyce. Last time she was sick… When it was just me and her, she got to 103.8 and we both thought she was dying. It's already up to 104, and it's just gonna get higher. I don't know if I can do this."

Eleven saw Joyce move to Hopper, and she put a hand on his arm.

"Kid's are tough, Hop. You saw Will tonight. You've seen him every day for the past year and how weak and hurt he seemed. But he always bounced back, and she'll do it too. They'll both be fine before you know it."

Eleven's head throbs then, and she moans, scrunching in on herself.

"Oh, hey, hey, sweet girl, shh, you're okay," Hopper says. Eleven leans into his touch where he's still petting her head.

"Thirsty," She mumbles, and her eyes are already beginning to close.

"Okay, okay, hey, stay up now, we'll get you some water. Joyce?" Joyce was out of the room quickly. "You need to drink, El."

When Joyce returns, El takes two sips before falling back into a feverish sleep.

**Joyce doesn't remember falling asleep, and yet here she is. She is very close to the chief, who has his head leaned over from his chair onto the side of the bed, and also to Eleven, who is still cuddled under at least five blankets, when she opens her eyes, and they are both sleeping, too. And then she lifts her head, and she sees that Will is there, also, and he is perched just beside her, sleeping with his head lying across her middle. And then there is Jonathon, who is at her feet, on the floor, and he is sleeping as well. Joyce reaches forward to her son's forehead groggily, and is pleased to see that he no longer feels warm in the least. She then moves her hand to Eleven's forehead, and smiles, because while she is still hot, she is not so scalding she cannot be touched as she was earlier.**

**Joyce notices that the cup on the bedside table is also empty, a good sign that Eleven is hydrated, when the girl in question opens her eyes.**

" **Hey, brown eyes," Joyce smiles, her hand still on her forehead. She brushes a curl from the child's face.**

" **Home?" Eleven said softly. Joyce smiled.**

" **Yeah, you're home, baby, you're home. We're all home now."**

**And then Eleven smiled, and Joyce saw her nodding off again.**

" **Good."**

**And they were happy.**

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one I tried a new style with, and I hope it's not too confusing. I had a lot of fun writing this, too! As always, reviews save lives. Let me know what you think! :)
> 
> p.s. this is the first one i wrote, hence the title


	5. In Which The Demogorgan Gets Rekt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It had been a week and a half since Eleven had been out of hiding to the boys, and she couldn't be any happier to be granted access to her friends again. Well, maybe she could be if she wasn't bed ridden. Or, El gets to feeling a little down and the boys do their best to cheer her up.

_In Which the Demogorgan Gets Rekt; [In Which Everything is Okay, pt 5/?]_

* * *

_**November 17, 1984. Thursday.** _

It had been a week and a half since Eleven had been out of hiding to the boys, and she couldn't be any happier to be granted access to her friends again.

Well, maybe she could be if she wasn't bed ridden.

Eleven had spent the early part of the week sleeping and nothing more. The sheer exhaustion of using her powers that much had left her drained and feverish, and Hopper even had to carry her from the Byers' because her legs wouldn't seem to work. But that was okay, because Hopper had been taking off work early to care for her, and when he couldn't be there, Joyce Byers would bring her own child over and would watch both ill children herself. (Will was still recovering, too, and even if he was technically capable of taking care of himself at this point, Joyce was in no way ready to leave him alone again.)

It had been a week and a half, and Eleven had spent the whole time without seeing Mike, instead listening to Joyce read her  _Anne of Green Gables_ and getting to know Will without the other boys around. It was surprising to Eleven to remember that she hadn't really  _met_ Will before. Having heard so much about him and reached out to him so many times, she felt like she had. But on Tuesday, when Hopper had gone into work and left Eleven with a kiss on the forehead, a command to be good, and Joyce Byers, Will had come into Eleven's room from his normal place on their couch when his mother went to fetch the thermometer.

"Hi." He said softly, offering El a smile as he tugged his blanket around his shoulders. El noted the way his sunken in eyes sparkled at the greeting and could tell he was genuine. "I don't think we've really talked before. I'm Will, but.. you know that."

Eleven smiled at him, a small, thin smile, but a smile none-the-less.

"Can I sit?" He said then, gesturing to an empty place on her bed. She nodded slightly and he sat.

"I, uhm.. I really appreciate everything you did for me. That was really cool."

Eleven cocked her head.

"Cool?" She said, her voice extremely hoarse. Will nodded.

"Cool. Like… It was really nice of you. Thanks."

Eleven smiled. She knew what Nice was. Nice was Hopper when he helped her get into pajamas when she was too weak to work the buttons on her jacket after That Night. Nice was Joyce when she held her and cradled her in the Bath at the school last year. Nice was Will, talking to her and trying to make her feel not-lonely right now after being cooped up in her room for a week.

The two had bonded over being sick together, and soon enough Will was coming into her room every day. Sometimes they even napped side-by-side, not intending to but just succumbing to fever at the same time and laying where they fell. The bond they had was different than what El had with Mike - but not in a bad way. She thought of the way Mike talked to Nancy or how they looked at baby Holly in the photos.  _Siblings,_ she thought, the word coming briefly to the back of her mind whenever she thought of Will.

Having Will over helped Eleven start to feel better, and the same was true for Will, too. He loved spending time at the Hopper residence - with all his friends and his brother going to school like normal, it would get lonely just him and his mom.

On a Friday, when Will walked into El's room as Hopper was leaving, Eleven felt a pang of sadness in her heart. The sunken in look of his eyes had decreased greatly, and his cheeks were a little rounder. He was more colorful, with rosy cheeks and skin a pale shade of peach rather than a gray-blue color. He looked alive and well, and, while El was happy for him, she was also upset. From what Will had told her, alive and well meant you could go to school. Alive and well meant that soon she would be left alone again, just her and , or worse, just her and the house, waiting for Hopper to get home.

El was recovering, too, but at a much slower pace than her friend. Will had the advantage of a strong immune system, having been exposed to so many illnesses as a child, and, even after his body was thrown for a loop by the Mind Flayer, was able to back on his feet quickly. El, on the other hand, had never been exposed to illness before. In the lab, there were always shots, and sterile walls, and medical masks. At home, in Hopper's home, she was always alone and not out in the world contracting germs. There had been a grand total of two times she had gotten sick at home, and, while both times had been doozies, that was it. The amount of stress her body was put under after closing the gate paired with being around the boys and cold air that evening was just too much for her body to handle, and now she was going on eight days with a fever never reaching below 99.7 degrees farenheight.

The first three days - the days before Will had been well enough to venture into her room, the days before Hopper was even emotionally ready to leave home - were miserable. She was in and out of consciousness, and all she had was the hazy memory of frantic voices and cold wash-cloths and Hopper holding her hand in her sleep. Of being wheedled to eat soup and apple sauce and of coughing it right back up. Of lack of appetite and being told to drink a weird liquid called 'Gatorade' because it would make her feel better. Those three days were awful, but she would still pick those days over her time being 'alive and well' in the lab.

Now it was day eleven, and El finally had the strength to sit up in bed and could eat an entire bowl of chicken and stars and only took four naps a day instead of twelve. And Will had stayed home one last day, just for good measure, and was going to go back to school on Monday.

And then Eleven would be alone.

The two were sitting, El on the bed and Will in his designated 'reading chair' reading her a book called  _Lord of the Rings,_ when there was a knock at her door.

"Hey you two," Joyce had said softly, cracking the door a centimeter. "You have company."

Will brightened as the door opened the rest of the way, and Eleven gasped.

"Hey!" Will grinned, standing slowly as to not get light headed. "I've missed you guys!"

"Missed you too, buddy!" Dustin grinned, pulling Will into a 'manly' hug and patting his shoulder.

"Mike…" El whispered as she looked around for the tallest boy. Among the group was Max, the girl Eleven still hadn't officially met, but no Mike. Max could sense the unease from the smaller girl and took Lucas's hand.

"He's got detention. We were playing Go Fish in study hall and he flipped a table. He'll be by later, though. He's pretty pissed to be missing seeing his girlfriend for the first time in a week." She said, offering a smile. Eleven wrinkled her nose, still unsure if she liked this girl, but happy to know that Mike would be by soon. She settled against the backboard and sighed, and the group that had entered sat in various places around the room, Will returning to his chair at the bedside. Dustin came and plopped down next to Eleven.

"I've missed ya, El. How do you feel?"

The girl shrugged, eyes downcast. She didn't feel well at all, but she could lift her head, which was more than she could say at the beginning. Did that mean she was doing well?

"Okay." She mumbled, not meeting his eyes. He didn't seem to mind, but he did seem concerned.

"Were you, like, this drained last time? Like when you shattered into a hundred million tiny pieces?" He said, scooting farther onto the bed and lifting his foot up to take off his shoe. Eleven's face warmed and she looked away. She didn't want to think about that. Not with Max here.

"Woah, what? Shattered?" Speak of the devil. Max was looking severely concerned now.

"When she defeated the Demogorgan. Like -" And then Lucas made a sound akin to glass breaking, and El bit her lip.

"You didn't tell me that part. What do you mean… shattered? She - you really broke into pieces?" Max was on the bed now, too, and was looking at Eleven expectantly.

"Shattered." The smaller girl said, looking down at her hands. She didn't feel well. All of a sudden she just really wanted all of her friends to leave. She wanted Mike and she needed to sleep. Or maybe to vomit. At this point, she couldn't really tell which. Will seemed to pick up on her unease, and he reached over from his chair and took her hand.

"You don't have to talk about it, El." He said softly. "Can we change subjects?"

Dustin frowned.

"But it was so  _bada*s,"_ He tried, glancing first at Max then at Eleven. "And Max doesn't even know how cool it was. Will doesn't either, for that matter." Eleven frowned, and Dustin tried again. "What if - just hear me out - What if you didn't have to talk about it? What if - What if me and Lucas explain it." Dustin saw her unease. "Betcha we can make you laugh if we do."

Eleven supposed that was a little better, and, looking at the expectant faces around her, she nodded. Dustin grinned, exchanged a look with Lucas, and then stood.

"C'mon, buddy. Let's go backstage. You three, get on the bed. You're in for a treat."

Lucas and Dustin retreated into the hallway and closed the door, and Eleven leaned back against the headboard again as Will joined her and Max on the bed. He put a hand on her shoulder and offered a smile.

"You okay?" He said softly, and Eleven nodded. Max gave a sympathetic smile.

"Being sick sucks. I hope you get to feeling better." She said, almost reaching out to touch Eleven's leg but drawing back nervously. She still wasn't sure where Eleven stood when it came to her joining the party.

"Thank you." Eleven said, recalling the lesson on 'manners' Hopper had given her so many months ago. Say please and thank you. Excuse yourself if you need to leave a meal. Respect your elders. Eat with a fork (She was still working on that one).

Max smiled nervously to that, and then the door slammed open.

"Ladies and gentleman!" Dustin bellowed, throwing his hands out beside him in an overdramatic manner, "Put your hands together for the thrilling tale of, 'The Girl With No Hair Versus the Demon with No Heart'! Featuring our very own Lucas Sinclair-" Lucas stepped in then, taking a bow, "As Eleven and our very own me as the Demogorgan! Now, please, calm your applause and get ready for the once in a lifetime tale of a young girl conquering evil with nothing but her mind!"

Will was laughing and so was Max, but Eleven was confused. There was no applause, nor was this a 'once in a lifetime' tale. This had already happened once, and here it was happening again. Wasn't that two times? Dustin turned out the light before she could ask, leaving only the lamp light to illuminate the room.

And then they proceeded to act out exactly what had happened that fateful night at the school so long ago.

"And then the brave and courageous Dustin - I'm Dustin now, not the Demogorgan," Dustin clarified before lifting Lucas off of the ground, "Carried the weak and tired Eleven into a safe classroom!"

He threw Lucas unceremoniously onto the floor, and the boy in question made an 'oof' sound.

"And then - The Demogorgan burst through the door - KAPOW!" He continued, puffing up big with his cheeks and arms and walking in on his tiptoes. He screeched, a loud and horrendous yell as he did so, and moved towards Lucas on the floor.

Max was giggling, and so was Will.

Eleven was still confused. Was it okay to laugh at this? The play was bringing back some old memories that she would rather not relive, but seeing it like this … Brushing past it, and trying to make it seem funny… was, in a weird way, kind of making the tension in her heart ease a little bit. She gave the tiniest smile and watched intently to the two boys in the middle of the room.

"And then Lucas was a dumba*s and tried to kill it with the Wrist-Rocket," Dustin paused to explain, and Lucas sat up a little on his elbows, an angry expression on his face.

"Not before Dustin screamed like a little girl!" He said, grinning.

Again, confusing. Screaming was appropriate in that situation, Eleven thought. But their smiles made her heart loosen even more, and so she remained quiet.

"And then - and then Eleven was up, and she was facing the Demogorgan, and she - she-"

Lucas stood then and made a horrible glaring face at Dustin. He tilted his chin towards his chest, and then Eleven jumped as Dustin began to writhe in pain.

"Oh, ahh! She's killing me!" He shouted, clutching his chest and falling to the ground. Lucas shuddered himself, and then both boys locked eyes, nodded and made a simultaneous crashing noise.

And El laughed.

It was sudden, unexpected. This moment had been so serious - so influential to her life. She had almost  _died._ And yet, here she was, laughing at the funny sound effects her friends made, like it was nothing. For some weird unknown reason, laughing at it made it feel less real.

Well, real wasn't quite the word for it. It made it feel less…Scary. Like maybe she could move past it, and maybe she could think about it - think about the terrible feeling and the terrifying moments and losing her friends - without crying, because now she had them back. And now they were trying to make her feel better by putting on a show to show how ' _bada*s"_ she was. To make her  _laugh._

And so she did. She laughed and laughed until her stomach hurt, and the others in the room laughed, too - simply because they had never, ever heard El laugh that much before. They'd barely heard more than a chuckle.

And Dustin cheered, because he had accomplished what he had meant to, and Max whooped because she finally knew what had happened, and Will grinned and grabbed El's hand and squeezed, just to make sure she was alright.

And then Mike burst into the door, looking excited and then shocked, because Max had her arm around El, and Will was holding her hand, and Lucas and Dustin were sprawled in the floor, their limbs at odd, odd angles that couldn't be comfortable, and they were straight up  _cackling._

"What- What the  _he*l,"_ Mike said, eyes widening and body rigid. Confused.

El stopped laughing faster than he could stop for breath. "Mike!" She nearly shrieked, forgetting how weak and ill she still was and scrambling to get out bed.

She wavered as soon as she did so, but that was okay, because Mike met her halfway and greeted her in a strong embrace.

Eleven's head ached from moving, and her muscles felt as if she had just run a marathon, but she didn't care because she was breathing in Mike's amazing scent of old garage and Christmas spices, and he had his face nestled into her hair and was hugging her so tightly she thought she may burst.

"I missed you," He said to her hair.

"Missed you," She repeated, breathing in deep.

"Uhm, excuse me, love birds," Lucas said from his place on the ground. "How was the show?"

Dustin sat up quickly, grinning from ear to ear. His partial denture had fallen out in his great death scene, but he could hardly care. "Told you you'd laugh!"

Eleven looked up at Mike at this, and seeing his confused look only made the weak girl begin to giggle again.

"What..?" Mike tried, looking from Max to Lucas and Dustin to Eleven to Will back to Eleven.

"Play," Eleven said softly between raspy giggles. "It was…" She paused. "Cool."


	6. In Which Santa Claus Comes to Town

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eleven knew about Santa Claus. From all the hype on the television, how could she not? Eleven, however, did not know the first thing about Christmas traditions, or what joy they could bring.

 

_In Which Santa Claus Comes to Town_

* * *

 

Eleven knew about Santa Claus. One night a few weeks ago she had asked Mike in fear about the man, quite afraid that no one had _stopped_ this snack-stealing menace yet, and Mike had gone that funny shade of pink he only turned around her before beginning to explain. The other kids who were seated in various positions across the basement struggled to hold in their laughter. One stern look from Mike told them not to spoil the fun before he had a chance to explain.

 

“Santa’s not -- He doesn’t steal anything. He--” Mike cut himself off and paused, as if he was pondering. (He really was pondering something -- Whether to let El live her childhood out a little late or to ruin the facade of Santa before she even knew anything about him. He chose the former, because who __didn’t__ want to believe in Santa? Well, other than Lucas, but that was because he had walked in on ‘Santa’ grabbing his mother’s rear end at ten pm on his sixth Christmas, and he had called the police. One frantic apology to the 911 operator and a serious conversation later, Lucas was ready to forget Santa was ever an option.)

 

Mike took a deep breath, as well as Eleven’s hand, and shot a look at his friends. Somehow they got the message to play along. One by one, the boys and Max filed over to the couch the two were sharing and sat, only Dustin and Lucas making little kissy faces at Mike before they settled. Mike continued.

 

“Santa is like magic. He doesn’t steal stuff, it’s just like, If you leave cookies for him, he’ll eat them.” Mike smiled, and he could tell that Eleven was deep in thought trying to comprehend the story.

 

“He’s like a rat,” Dustin supplied, grinning and ready to put his own twist on things, “He works for the cookies. If you don’t feed him, he’ll just stop bringing presents. Probably pass out.” Dustin thought a minute, and laughed. “Maybe Santa has diabetes.”

 

Eleven made a face and looked at Dustin. “Dia-bee-tees?” She sounded out each syllable carefully, trying to understand. Mike rolled his eyes at Dustin and squeezed El’s hand, getting her to look at him again.

 

“That’s not the point. The point is, Santa won’t steal your food, so there’s nothing to worry about. He’s just a jolly, happy old guy who likes to make kids happy, so he leaves presents. Anything you, want, Santa will leave for you.”

 

Mike realized what he had said at the cough and look Lucas gave him, and quickly revised it.

 

“Well, almost anything. Sometimes Santa can’t get __everything__ you want, but he tries really hard.”

 

Eleven cocked her head.

 

“How?” She asked. It was Mike’s turn to cock his head.

 

“How what?”

 

“Santa knows. How?”

 

Will took this one, putting a hand gently on Eleven’s shoulder. She jumped a little, her breath catching in her chest, but she recovered quickly as she turned to look and saw who it was. She and Will were still very close _ _,__ and his touch felt safe.

 

“He’s magic.” Will smiled softly. “Santa knows everything you want him to know.”

 

Eleven brightened a little.

 

“Like Mike.” She said, and Mike turned that funny shade of pink again at the mention of their connection. Will giggled, because Mike had talked to him about the nonverbal communication that he and El shared, and amended his sentence.

 

“No, no, Santa knows what __everyone__ wants him to know. He brings everyone presents, all the kids around the world, because of his magic sleigh and reindeer.”  

 

Eleven nodded, slowly, methodically, as if she were contemplating deep philosophy.

 

“People think Santa comes down the chimney.” Lucas said, trying to remain neutral despite his strong stance on the subject. He thought tricking children was cruel -- he could never get that image of Santa and his mom out of his head -- but he supposed El was old enough, and smart enough, to decipher the truth if she really wanted to, so he did his best to play along. “But my sister always got scared he’d get stuck, so we told her-- We __thought__ that he came through the door. Comes through the door. Still.”

 

Eleven smiled.

 

“Like Big Bird?” She asked. Dustin made a face, and Lucas looked confused, but Mike got it. He had a four year old sister. Of __course__  he got it.

 

“Yeah, like Big Bird. Santa’s just magic, so even though Big Bird lives in a nest without a chimney, Santa still brings him presents.” Mike smiled. He didn’t care that his girlfriend loved little kid shows; if he was honest with himself, he liked them pretty well, too. They were all friendly, and colorful, and were just exactly what Eleven needed to get accustomed to her new normal. Now, Mike wouldn’t exactly call himself a __Rainbow Brite__ fan, but he could get behind __Fraggle Rock__ and __Sesame Street__ just as much as Eleven did. He even knew the exact Christmas Special she was referring to, seeing as he, Holly and their mother had sat down to watch it just the night before.

 

Mike was sure his friends would laugh and tease him for knowing Sesame Street trivia later, but for now they stayed quiet. They didn’t tease El for liking childish or weird things, not ever. Part of that was because they knew she never got a chance to be a child when she was younger.

 

Part of that was because she could snap their legs in .02 seconds without even moving a muscle.

 

“So.. Santa comes, without chimney?” Eleven asked, leaning forward. Mike nodded, and Dustin decided to chime in with, “I hear he climbs in through the vents.”

 

“You have to go to sleep early, though,” Will said seriously from behind her. Eleven turned and looked at him, and a little frown appeared on her lips. She had lots of trouble sleeping, and, when she did get to sleep, she had even more trouble staying asleep because of her still-present nightmares. Lucas noticed her discomfort and leaned over.

 

“But you can always just fake it. That’s what Erica does, and she still gets presents. That little demon never sleeps.” He laughed, and Dustin nodded solemnly. He had met Erica many times, and he whole heartedly agreed.

 

Lucas continued.

 

“People do a whole lot of different things other than just wait for Santa, though. Like, my family does this whole tree-lighting ceremony the day after Thanksgiving, and Dustin’s family always has a cookie decorating contest.”

 

Dustin shrugged when El looked to him.

 

“I never stand a chance. Mews always won.”

 

Mike cut in before Eleven could ask about Mews, because he knew cats were a sore spot with El, and he squeezed her hand before he started talking.

 

“Yeah, and me and Holly and Nancy always watch movies and Mom makes pie and Dad reads the Christmas story from the Bible on Christmas Eve. Everyone does different stuff, and that’s what makes it so special.” Eleven nodded with a smile, putting the word __Bible__ in her back pocket to ask about later, and turned to Will. He answered almost instantly.

 

“We watch __Rudolph,__ and Jonathon fixes hot chocolate because Mom doesn’t do it right.” He laughed. Eleven laughed, too, because she knew how Joyce’s cooking usually went.

 

Eleven looked around the room, now noticing that Max had remained silent. She was seated beside Lucas on the floor, and her eyes were watching her fingers delicately pick at the carpet. It wasn’t as if Eleven didn’t __like__ Max -- The two had met a few times since __That Night,__ and Eleven had apologized profusely and offered a gift of atonement for her behavior. Max had accepted the rock that Eleven had meticulously picked out from her back yard and had punched Eleven’s shoulder with a little smile.

 

“Don’t worry about it. You’re really bada**, El. I respect that.”  

 

And now the two were __almost__ friends, or at least, El __wanted__ to be friends, but they hadn’t quite reached that level of trust yet. Eleven wanted to see if she could further their friendship by including her in the conversation.

 

“Max?” She asked, and all the boys’ attention went to the silent redhead. She looked up immediately, blue eyes startled, and sat up slowly. She shrugged.

 

“I-I mean, we don’t really __do__ much for Christmas,” She started, blushing as if she was caught off guard. “Not since Billy and Neil moved in, I mean. They don’t celebrate it, so now we don’t, either. When Lucas came over last week and didn’t see a tree, he thought we were Mormon.”

 

Lucas blushed a little at that, but stayed quiet. Instead, Will voiced a thought.

 

“That shouldn’t change anything,” He said, a quizzical look on his face. “Mom’s Jewish, but my dad was Baptist so we always celebrated both.”

 

Max shrugged.

 

“I don’t know. I guess mom just cares too much about what they think to do it anymore.”

 

The room got quiet for a minute.

 

“I can’t believe you guys are making me do this.” Mike said suddenly, standing up.

 

“What?” Dustin said, slightly irritable at the accusation.

 

“I can’t believe you guys are making me host a Christmas party.” Mike turned to them, and his face was full of delight. “I mean, El’s never had a Christmas, and Max hasn’t had a good one in a while, so we have to make up for it. This week. Thursday, when school lets out early.”

 

\---

 

Thursday came faster than they were expecting, and when the time came all of them were nearly bouncing with excitement. Eleven had been dropped off at the Wheeler’s early in the morning, per their new arrangement that Hopper lovingly titled the “Keep Eleven Out of My Hair” plan. El would go to be taught and watched by Karen on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and today was spent mainly decorating and planning for the party. Mike and the Party were at school until eleven thirty, and so until then it was up to Karen, Eleven, and Holly to get the house fixed up and ready. They did the dishes, and set the table, and made sure the Christmas tree was just so, and by 10:45, El was having the joy of baking her first Christmas cookies.

 

“Okay, girls, so what you want to do it press this little cutter down into the dough.” Karen explained to Holly and El. Eleven was looking at her intently, but Holly was already well on her way to decapitating a gingerbread man she had already cut out. She was an old pro at this.

 

Eleven very delicately pushed down on her own Christmas tree cutter, her eyes flicking between the pressed-dough and Karen. The woman smiled and nodded.

 

“Yep, just like that.”

 

Within fifteen minutes, Holly had eaten about a third of the dough in little bites while her mother was turned away, the cookies were in the oven, and Eleven was covered from head to toe in flour and sugar.

 

“Okay, girlie-bugs, let’s get cleaned up.” Karen laughed, looking at the mess. Holly whipped her head around and looked up at her like a deer in the headlights, dough she had been hiding in her overall pocket halfway up to her mouth. Karen swatted it from her hand and Holly stuck out her tongue, and Eleven laughed. She liked Christmas traditions.

 

By noon, all of the Party was at the Wheeler home, sitting around the table for a Christmas lunch filled with sandwiches and all kinds of baked goods and candies, and they were chatting exuberantly about their weeks and plans for the break.

 

It was all a little overwhelming for Eleven, but she loved it all the same. She loved her loud, excitable friends, and their laughs and yells and petty arguments, their milk-snorting laughs and borderline food-fights, even if she had to sit back in her chair and cover her ears sometimes to make it not so loud. Mike noticed this once when she had to, and asked silently if she was okay with a hand on her shoulder and a concerned look. She nodded, smiling, and Mike smiled back, leaving his hand on her shoulder and consciously making his voice softer.

 

After lunch was Dirty Santa, which Eleven still wasn’t quite sure the meaning of, but she supposed Santa got dirty with all the chimney and vent spelunking, so she didn’t ask.

 

It was just the kids in the room, and things got a little hectic. Max explained the rules in a question, to make sure that it was the same as the White Elephant exchange they had in California, and Eleven “ohhhh”ed in understanding.

 

It was a gift exchange, and you could steal other presents if you liked them better, if it was your turn. She thought she got it, but she still sat very close to Mike and asked him whose turn it was each time, just in case.

 

Lucas opened a Dreamtime Barbie, Will a big scratch ‘n’ sniff sticker book, and Mike a scented candle that he was sure belonged to someone’s mother, when it was El’s turn.

 

She picked a small bag in the center because it had a pretty red bow on it, and then sat down next to Mike to open it.

 

She did not notice Dustin’s horrified face in time, and by the time he was able to voice his warning, she had already pulled the gift from the bag.

 

There, in Eleven’s hands, sat a very fancy looking bra adorned with decorative lace. It was bright red, and see through on the upper half, and Dustin’s face was one of absolute mortification.

 

Mike’s was just about as red as the bra.

 

“Uhm, that was -- I meant to---” Dustin sputtered as the dam broke and Max and Lucas began cackling. “That was meant for one of those losers!” Dustin finally shouted, gesturing wildly to the half of the circle where his fellow boys sat. Max laughed and bent in two.

 

“Where did you even get that, you __perv?!”__ She grinned.

 

“It was under the seat of the car when I cleaned out Steve’s car last month! I just thought it’d be funny, I’m so, so sorry El,” Dustin tried, reaching for the bra. “I’ll take that one, you pick another.”

 

To his surprise, Eleven pulled the red lingerie away from Dustin’s hand and held her chin up high.

 

“No.” She told him, struggling not to giggle. Instead, she pulled the bra on over her head, clasping the back under her chin and adjusting the cups over her curls. “Good hat.”

 

Max was wheezing now, rolling around on the floor, but the boys were sharing a look of horror.

 

“El, that’s--” Mike started, because he was sure he and the rest of the party were thinking the same thing. El didn’t know what that was. She didn’t know what she was doing. She was being cute, and innocent, and didn’t understand that the red garment was meant for mature ladies. Mike was about to explain it’s actual use, but one look at El’s twinkling eyes told him that she already knew.

 

That look at Mike caused El to burst just like Max, and she was giggling harder than the boys had ever seen her before. Lucas fell backwards in a mock scream that turned soon into a laugh, and Will was tearing up from his own laughter. Mike laughed an out of breath, relieved laugh, and Dustin just gaped.

 

“She __played__ us!!” He shouted, his face that of utter disbelief. “Little Miss Innocence herself played us!”

 

Mike covered his mouth in realization as he looked at the bra fixed around Eleven’s curls and gasped.

 

“You guys.” He said seriously. No one heard. “You guys!” He tried again, more forcefully this time. The laughing halted, mostly, for a moment, and they all looked at him. Eleven looked concerned, so concerned that she almost pulled the underwear off of her head, but, just like before, the eyes gave it away and Eleven was the first to giggle. Mike looked back to the group so he wouldn’t laugh himself and shared his revelation. “That’s one of Nancy’s bras!”

 

And the cackling began all over.

 

\--

 

It was nearly time for Hopper to be there for Eleven when the party started to die down. Lucas and Max had walked back to Lucas’ house, because his parents were offering her a ride home and Lucas would __not__ miss out on sitting next to her in a car, Dustin had biked home because it was his turn to clean the litter box and his mom would kill him if he was late (Eleven was very concerned at this phrase, and almost flipped Dustin’s bike when she tried to stop him from leaving with her mind because she didn’t think he should go back if someone would kill him, but that was explained very quickly to her by Mike), Joyce had arrived to pick Will up for dinner five minutes ago, and that left just Mike and Eleven, waiting patiently in the living room for Hopper to arrive. Mike sighed contentedly, because Eleven was sleepy and whenever she was sleepy she would lay her head on Mike’s shoulder and hug his arm, as they sat in a comfortable silence. He looked around the room, and was about to comment on what a good job that Eleven had done helping with decorations when he saw it.

 

Scratch that. It wasn’t just Mike and El.

 

It was Mike, El, and __mistletoe.__ And the mistletoe was right in the arch separating the living room from the entryway, where they had to pass under to get to the door. Mike’s eyes widened, and his heart picked up the pace, because they had only kissed twice before and he wasn’t sure if Eleven would want to, but at the same time he wanted to very much. Eleven must have noticed a disturbance, because she shifted and looked up to him with those big doe eyes, a look of concern on her face.

 

“Mike?” She asked, and then, __Are you alright?__ , but that part was unspoken. Mike nodded, swallowed, and pointed, looking at her.

 

“There’s mistletoe.” He said. Eleven nodded.

 

“Yes. I put it there.” She said seriously, looking Mike dead in the eyes. He turned back to the decor.

 

“Do you… Uhm, do you know what Mistletoe means?” He asked. When he looked back, Eleven was smiling her little closed-lipped smile, and her eyes were twinkling again.

 

“Yes. Holly said.”  

 

Mike nodded, hunching his shoulders and leaning over with his elbows propped on his knees. His eyes were wide and his mind was racing.

 

“Alright. Cool.”

 

And then Eleven stood, took his hand, and was dragging him over to the entryway.

 

“El, what--” Mike began, and then her lips were on his and it was a very warm gesture. Mike kissed back, though that didn’t entail much as it was only a peck, but still. It felt like magic, just as it had the first two times, and when they pulled away, breathless, Mike was smiling. Eleven giggled.

 

“Christmas.” She said. Mike then got brave, just as Eleven had, and leaned over to kiss El’s cheek.

 

“Merry Christmas to you, too,”  

 

Before she knew it, Eleven was enveloped in a big, lanky hug -- her favorite kind because they were from her favorite person -- and she smelled his signature scent of spices and garage, and he smelled her’s of warm caramel and strawberries, and then there was Hopper, banging on the door and saying he’d been knocking for five minutes, and he could see them through the glass, and if they didn’t open the door now he was going to break it down.

 

 

 

__Christmas Eve, 1984_ _

 

Hopper grunted when he looked at the calendar. The 24th of December-- Christmas Eve.

Last year at this time, Hopper hadn't thought much of Christmas. He had gone to the work party early in the evening, left his mystery girl in the woods some food, and gone home. He took an early shower and went to sleep at eight, and the next morning he had woken at seven and had done a whole lot of nothing all day.

 

Then three days later, he had found Eleven.

 

Naturally, the two did not celebrate a late Christmas. For weeks, Hopper was simply trying to get Eleven accustomed to living in a real home and eating real food, and the holidays didn't even cross his mind. The first week was spent staying up all night with her nightmares, and from then on there was the bed-wetting, and inability to eat whole servings, and then the refusal to eat anything but Eggos. (El had gone straight from scared little animal to stubborn little girl). Then in January, Eleven had gotten terribly sick and that had been all Hopper could think of, and by the time things had settled down a little, the holidays were long past.

 

Now it was December 24th of the next year, and Hopper had no idea what to plan to make this special for his daughter's first Christmas.

 

He had explained Christmas and Santa to her, of course -- to much confusion from Eleven, and then fear at the idea of a fat man breaking into your house and taking your food (That conversation had taken place on the way to the Wheeler’s one morning, and instead of explaining it himself he had pushed her into the house and told her to ask Mike) -- but they hadn't made a plan. He had sent Eleven to Mike’s house with a drug-store gift for a little party and secret Santa (To which he arrived to pick her up to see much kanoodling from the young couple), and from Karen he had heard about the decorating, and cookies, and the few games that were planned. She came home just talking in her little Eleven way about all the goings on at the party, even stopping and just giggling at one point and never explaining why. Hopper loved that she had a good time, but also wanted his Christmas with her to be better. He knew that would be hard to do, because he was just boring old Hop and not ever-endearing Mike, but he could try. However, he had no idea __how__ to attempt that. He had bought her some things-- some new clothes, tasteful makeup, a series of stuffed animals, a few books and a doll or two -- but that was it.

 

Now it was the day of, and he had no clue what to do to make the night special. Just as he was having that thought, at 7 am on a Monday dressed in his fleece pajama pants and leaning over a pan of bacon, the phone rang.

 

He rolled his eyes and sighed, because he hated the phone, but before he could answer he heard little feet pattering through the house. He didn’t even have time to remind Eleven to be cautious before he heard her little voice answering an unheard question.

 

That was a little odd, because ever since he had begun permitting her to pick up the phone the week before, she had developed a bad habit of just standing and breathing into the receiver without saying anything. However, if she was talking, he knew it had to be to someone safe. Before he could ponder it more, or take the bacon off the stove, a little body slammed into his waist and a hand was thrusting the phone in front of his face.

 

"Joyce." Eleven said plainly as he took the telephone. Hopper put it to his ear.

 

"Hello?"  

 

" _ _Hey, Hop! Your daughter tells me that Santa comes tonight, "__  The cheery voice of Joyce Byers chirped, and Hopper could practically feel her smile.

 

"Yep, that he does. What can I help you with, Joyce?" Hopper asked, keeping his focus on the way Eleven was trying desperately to unwrap herself from the telephone cord.  

 

 _ _"Well, Will had asked, and I was hoping--"__  And then Hopper couldn't hear her anymore, because he had dropped the phone and was catching El by the arm as she nearly toppled to the ground. He set her back on her feet by the arm and tousled her hair when she looked up at him with an expression of fear.

 

“You’re fine, kiddo. Don’t get yourself wrapped up like that, okay?”

 

Eleven nodded at the instruction and rubbed at her arm, and Hopper bent down to pick up the phone again.

 

“Sorry ‘bout that.” Hopper said gruffly into the receiver. He started and then stopped again, remembering not to say any name that could be connected with Eleven over the phone. “Kid decided she was gonna be an acrobat and it didn’t go quite as planned.”

 

Joyce laughed for a moment before continuing.

 

 _ _“Will and I were just wondering… if maybe you and yours would like to come over tonight? Will says he wants to make__  her __Christmas extra special this year. We could have.. I don’t know, hot chocolate, and popcorn and watch a movie… And.. If you two wanted, maybe you could…stay the night?”__

 

Hopper loved the way her voice lilted up at the end, as if she was expecting him to be able to resist a request that she, Joyce Byers, had made.

 

“Aren’t you Jewish?” Hopper asked bluntly, trying to recall from highschool. He heard Joyce audibly sigh.

 

“ _ _Well.. Yes and no, I mean, Lonnie and I.. We shared the holiday. The boys share a Menorah to light and each had a little Christmas tree in their rooms. It just kind of stuck after he left.”__ Joyce paused, and Hopper heard a watery laugh. __“And you know I’m all for the Christmas lights.”__

__

Hopper didn’t respond, thinking of that day last year when he had found Joyce in her home surrounded by lights and letters. Her voice broke his train of thought.

 

“ _ _Please, Hop. Come over. The boys and I would be glad for you two to be here.”__

__

Hopper smiled a little just thinking about how El would love to spend this with her friends. And how he would love to spend it with Joyce.

 

“Let me check with the kiddo.” He said, then put a hand over the receiver and looked to Eleven.

 

She was currently glaring at the phone cord and tying it up in knots with her mind, just to show her distaste for how it had tripped her. When she noticed Hopper looking at her, she looked up at him and wiped her nose with her sleeve. Hopper shook his head, smiling.

 

“You weirdo,” He chuckled, and she stuck her tongue out at him, but it was all in good fun. “How do you feel about stayin’ with Joyce and the boys tonight and celebrating Christmas?”

 

“Yes! Yes!” Eleven said, grinning and nodding emphatically. “Please, Hop, please!”

 

“We’ll be there.” Hop grinned to Joyce over the phone. She said an excited “See you then!” before hanging up, and Hopper turned to El. As soon as he had spoken to Joyce, he had gotten an idea -- and if they were very careful -- if she dressed inconspicuously, and he kept her close, and they went to a locally owned shop -- maybe this could work. He patted her shoulder.

 

“Alright then kiddo. Go get dressed and we’ll shop some, okay?”

 

 

 

 

And that is how the two found themselves in the Byers’ living room at nine PM on a Monday, Hopper festooned with a Christmas hat and his arm around Joyce while Will and Eleven sat cross-legged on the floor with their eyes glued to the television.

 

“Yeah, that’s Hermie again,” Will said, pointing. Eleven scrunched up her face to think.

 

“Didn’t go to elf practice?” She asked, trying to clarify which character was which. Will nodded.

 

“Yup, same one. When I was little I told mom I wanted to be a dentist when I grew up just because Hermie did. I liked his hair.” Will laughed, and Eleven giggled, too.

 

Jonathon was in the kitchen stirring a pan of hot chocolate when he heard the two younger kids laughing, and he peeped into the living room and smiled.

 

Will and Eleven had changed into their pajamas about an hour ago, Will now dressed in a blue striped set and Eleven in a yellow polka dotted one, and the sight of the two of them seated on the floor surrounded by popcorn bits was quite endearing. Even more so, however, was his mother, sitting on the couch and leaning heavily on the chief of police, who had his hand tangled in her hair.

 

Jonathon knew they weren’t dating yet. The wound was still open from the loss of Bob -- that man had truly loved his mother and she had loved him right back -- but, while they weren’t in love, per se, Hopper made his mother feel safe and cared for, and just seeing the way she was around him made Jonathon smile.

 

Plus Hopper was wearing a Christmas hat. __That__ made him smile, too. He had to get a picture of this.

 

Very quietly, and after turning off the burner so the hot chocolate wouldn’t scorch, Jonathon moved over to the table and picked up his camera. He was going to take it slow and easy, to get the best shot possible of the people without them noticing so it would be genuine and candid, but before he could he heard voices.

 

“Where are you going?” His brother’s voice asked, and it was El’s that responded.

 

“Marshmallows.”

 

Jonathon heard the sound of someone getting up, and he knew if he waited much longer the moment would be lost. And so, he began to move hastily towards the doorway with his camera in tow. He didn’t even think about the fact that he was wearing socks, or that the floors were hardwood, and before he knew it, Jonathon was sliding into the living room like a regular photography ninja, his legs splayed and hands holding the camera for dear life.  

 

Maybe, just maybe he would have been unnoticed if he hadn’t shouted. But he was caught off guard by the slipping of his feet, and that surprise outed itself as a shout. Instantly the family looked up, El from her place standing ready to go raid the kitchen.

 

“Smile!” Jonathon laughed, because his mother had already started smiling at him and Will was laughing at how he burst into the room so unexpectedly, but El and Hopper were less than amused.

 

El was on a mission for sugar, and she was caught very much off guard.

 

Hopper was smitten with Jonathon’s mother, and he was caught very much off guard.

 

The picture that resulted was one that Jonathon would keep forever. His mother had a kind and warm smile on her face as she laughed, one leg drawn up under her as she leaned over to put a hand on Hopper’s leg. Will sat on the floor by the couch, legs beginning to stretch out, his eyes closed in laughter and his teeth showing.

 

And then there were El and Hopper, El standing with one fist clenched and the other open in surprise, Hopper sitting with one leg propped on the other and his arm around Joyce, and both of them were wearing the exact same expression. It was a look that conveyed disgust, annoyance, confusion and surprise all in one, and Jonathon almost cackled when he saw how __alike__ they looked.

 

And then El was at his feet, her head barely reaching his armpit, and she was telling him without words that she was in desperate need for some marshmallows, and that he should help her in her quest.

 

“Please,” She added to her unspoken request, and Jonathon laughed. He set the camera on the chair beside him and began off toward the kitchen, still laughing at the look on the house guests’ faces. He’d have to remember to put that in the album later.

 

Eleven was having quite a good time tonight, and her excitement for tomorrow was only causing her night to get even better. She pulled Jonathon into the kitchen by his sleeve, because while she was comfortable enough around the Byers family to go forage for her own food in the their kitchen, she wasn’t quite sure where they kept anything. Jonathon was a good choice in helping her find the marshmallows, because, from what Eleven had heard and experienced, he was the only Byers that actually knew how to and enjoyed cooking.

 

“Want to get them yourself?” He asked El as they entered the kitchen, and the smaller child nodded. Jonathon nodded an “Alright,” before boosting her up onto the counter in front of them. She got on her knees on the counter as Jonathon pointed the right cupboard out, and after her target was located and snatched up, she didn’t move to get down. Instead, she turned to look at her friend’s big brother, and she looked him straight in the eyes. She had a question.

 

“Does Santa really come in through the vents?”

 

Jonathon looked up, surprised.

 

“Does.. Does what?” He asked, almost startled to laughter.

 

“Dustin said. No chimney, comes in vents.” El explained. Jonathon shook his head, chuckling.

 

“You know, I don’t think he’d fit.” He grinned. Eleven looked perplexed.

 

“No chimney. How?” She demanded. Jonathon thought a moment. Will had stopped believing in Santa Claus two years ago, but before that it had been Jonathon’s job to keep the story alive.

 

“Well.. He’s just magic.” Jonathon finally decided. “And if you’ve been good, and are asleep when he gets here, then he’ll be able to leave you presents.”  

 

Eleven nodded, then looked back up to Jonathon. She was frowning.

 

“Is.. Is Santa real?” She asked, because it all seemed a little silly to her, no matter how much she liked the story. Jonathon glanced back to the living room, because he wasn’t sure what all Hopper wanted his daughter to know. He didn’t want to __lie,__ but he also wanted to keep the Christmas magic alive, at least for El’s first one. He smiled.

 

“Well, that’s for you to just wait and see.”

 

 

After laying out a plate of Oreos, a good teeth brushing, and being tucked (a ritual El had become accustomed to and one Will could never refuse) the two tweens lay awake in their respective sleeping places. El was piled onto the floor In Will’s old sleeping bag, her dollar store bear tucked up under her chin as she lay beside the bed, and Will was lying on his back in his bed, staring up at the ceiling. He loved Christmas and Hannukah, not just for the presents, but for what it signified.

 

Christmas was the first big event after Will really came home the first time, and before that, Christmas had been the only time his mother and father had gotten along, and before that, Christmas had been when Jonathon woke him up early and snuck him red and green m&ms in his crib before their parents could catch them. Hannukah was when his mother smiled the brightest and taught them the most, because even if she wasn’t a very religious person, it was part of her culture. The boys had a single Menorah to light together, because Lonnie thought it was silly, and his mother lit one on her own to show them how. Hannukah and Christmas, their own weird little combination of the two, was always a warm time for Will. He hoped Eleven could share that warm feeling this year.  

 

“What do you hope Santa brings?” Will asked, remembering that Mike wanted Eleven to hold onto that story this year. He heard Eleven shrug.

 

“Happy.” She said, and then he heard her roll over. Will thought a moment. He had asked for a watercolor kit. Eleven had asked for happiness.

 

Well, he supposed, if this Christmas was like any of the others he had experienced, she would get her wish, too.

 

 

Hopper slammed the trunk as he carted the presents he had bought into the house, the decorated and festive items shoved hastily into a garbage sack so El couldn’t see what he was stuffing in the car.  He knocked at the door, because he had no hands free, and when Joyce opened it she laughed.

 

“You look like a regular Santa Claus, Hop,”

 

“Ho ho ho.” Hopper said with a little smile and a grouchy tone. Joyce closed the door behind him.

 

“Don’t call me that.” She grinned, and Hopper returned the smile and rolled his eyes. “What all did you get her?” She whispered as she led Hopper to the tree.

 

“Not enough.” He sighed, beginning to pull gift after gift from the bag. Joyce’s eyes widened.

 

“I got Jonathon a roll of film and Will watercolors. I think you got yours’ plenty.” She smiled. Hopper grunted from his place bent over the bag, and his back gave a little crackle when he stood.

 

“Don’t think I forgot about the boys. I know money’s tight this time of year.” He pulled a few boxes that were wrapped differently from the others and set them out under the tree.

 

“Oh, Hop, you shouldn’t have,” Joyce said in an apologetic tone, smiling. Hopper shrugged and went back to unpacking gifts. Joyce looked at the array of boxes he had laid out.  

 

“Don’t you think that’s enough?” Joyce laughed, a quiet, whispered laugh. Hopper sighed in return, and that caused Joyce to feel a little bit of concern.

 

“She’s never had a real Christmas before, Joyce. Ever. That a**hole Brenner made sure of that. This time, its gotta be perfect.” He said, standing and looking at all of the gifts and the now empty garbage bag. Joyce reached over and grabbed his hand.

 

“It’ll be perfect.” She whispered, and she leaned up to kiss his cheek. “She’s going to love it.”

 

Hopper smiled and stood still a moment as Joyce stayed close, but after a moment he took a deep breath and rolled his shoulders back.

 

"Okay, now we gotta put the bike together."

 

 "The __what__?" Joyce laughed.

 

"The bike. El didn't have one and all the boys do. Thought it would be appropriate. "

 

Joyce swatted his arm.

 

"Jim Hopper, you are spoiling that girl."

 

 

\---

 

After much squabbling, much cursing ( "fu**!" "What?" "I dropped the screwdriver down the floor vent.", and "What the he**, what the fu**, why in the -- this is absolute horse sh*t, " "What now?" "They didn't include the axel,") and a late night trip to the cabin for scrap wood to fashion an axel, the bike was completed, the presents were beautiful, and Joyce and Hopper were seated side by side on the couch enjoying the milk and cookies the kids had left out.

 

"You're doing good, Hopper. As a dad again." Joyce said through a mouthful of cookie. She turned to look him in the eyes. "I mean it. She's lucky to have you."

 

And then Hopper pulled Joyce into a hug, and the night was calm.

 

\----

 

 

Hopper and Joyce awoke at 4 am the next morning, still curled up on the couch, to the sounds of feet pounding through the hall followed by Jonathon’s voice.

 

"I tried to hold them back, but they were too strong!! Look out!!!"

 

Will and El came barreling into the living room at max speed, and as soon as they entered they were under the tree.

 

Will was grateful for the gifts from his mother and hugged her tightly when he opened the watercolors and candies, but he was surprised when he saw more than he was expecting -- all labeled "to Will, from Santa " in a scratchy handwriting. First he looked to Jonathon, who shook his head over his own wrapped gift that El handed him. His eyes shifted to Hopper, and before the man could resist he was wrapped in an infamous Will Byers hug.  

 

Jonathon felt truly blessed for each each of his gifts, because he hadn't been expecting much. He felt like a little kid, opening gift after gift and still having more to go. He smiled at his mother and Hopper and thanked them silently.

 

El was hesitant, taking long moments to stop and read each tag carefully and delicately ripping the paper. She ooed genuinely over each gift, her favorites being a plush doll in a pink dress and the wide array of bright eyeshadow and lipgloss.

 

And then came the bike. Hopper said a quaint "I think Santa left one in here, I see a ribbon," before walking the pink bicycle into the living room.

 

Eleven had actually begun to cry when she realized it was for her. No one had ever given her something so nice. She could finally ride around with her boys, once the year was up, all on her own.

 

After examining every aspect she ran to Hopper and flung her arms around his middle. She knew now who had left the presents, for many different reasons, but that didn’t mean the magic had left.

 

"Thank you. " She whispered. He patted her back.

 

"What? That wasn't me, that was Santa." He retorted with a smile. El looked at him with slightly puffy eyes and made a face. Hopper laughed. "How'd you figure it out, kiddo?"

 

El thought a moment, back to the night before when she had lain awake. To what she heard.

 

"F**k."

 

\---

 

The rest of the day was a flurry of hugs and thank yous and hours of Hopper teaching El to ride her bike. That in itself was still a work in progress -- there was much falling, and scraped knees and hands,  and a whole debacle where her feet wouldn't reach the pedals and they had to get her seat lowered.  Will and Jonathon then stepped in to help in teaching, and Joyce stood with Hopper for a while. After Eleven rode three feet on her own without falling, Joyce corralled them back into the house and they all sat with hot chocolate and pink noses and bright eyes for what felt like hours.

 

The day was magical, especially in Eleven's mind, and the little family couldn't have asked for more.

 

Well, Hopper could have asked for Eleven to not be bent on repeating his midnight uttered phrases whenever she fell off her bike, but that wish would have to be fulfilled another day.

 

It was nearly six PM when Hopper told El to gather her things, and as she scurried off with Will to fetch her gifts, Hopper had a surprise.

 

“I don’t think you’ve looked under that tree yet, little lady,” Hopper said, turning to Joyce. The woman looked up from her empty mug.

 

“Hop, you haven’t called me that since highschool,” She laughed, rolling her eyes good heartedly. Hopper smiled at her, but gestured to the tree. Joyce followed his hand with her eyes and then her feet, and kneeled on the tree skirt. Within moments her hand had closed on a medium sized poorly wrapped box, and she looked up to Hopper quizzically.

 

“Looks like Santa remembered you this year,” Hopper said. Joyce laughed as she stood up.

 

“Oh, f*ck.” She whispered, reminding Hopper of his mistake. Hopper heaved a great sigh, thinking of the amount of times he was sure he heard El repeat the word during her lesson.

 

 “Yeah. We’ll talk about that later. For now, open that on up.” Jim pointed at the box in her hands, and Joyce looked at him for a moment before tearing the paper.

 

When she opened the box inside, she couldn’t do anything but smile. Hopper spoke up.

 

“Thank you for doing this, Joyce. I know it’s not really your thing to do Christmas, and.. I really, really appreciate you including El and me in it. She deserves a family. A real family, like this one.”

 

Joyce lightly touched the cool silver of the Menorah in her hands, and she delicately poked the dangling heart charm underneath the center candle. Hopper spoke again.

 

“Now the boys won’t have to share.”

 

She smiled up at Hopper, and reached to take his hand.

 

“Thank __you,__ Hop. You’ve made the past two days magical for all of us.”  

 

Hopper rolled his eyes, because he was sure he hadn’t done nearly enough, but as he did so his eyes caught something above them. His breath caught, and Joyce followed his gaze.

 

Mistletoe.

 

“Well, rules are rules,” The petite woman in front of him said, and then she was leaning up for a small kiss that could not be refused. Before their lips could meet, they heard the sound of things being dropped onto the wood floor.  

 

“Hop. Joyce.” A voice said, and Hopper whipped his head around to see Eleven standing there, all of her gifts at her feet. She sat down and began tugging her shoes on before looking up at the couple. “Merry Christmas.” She nodded. “Go home now.”

 

Joyce laughed, and so did Jim.

 

“Well, looks like we’ll be headed out.” He smiled, and Joyce gave his hand a little squeeze before letting go. He kissed her cheek. “Thank you again.”

 

“Thank you again.” Eleven parroted. She gave each Byers a hug and said her goodbyes quickly, and by the time Eleven was seated in the passenger seat she was dead asleep, her eyes covered in four shades of purple and pink eye shadow, her lap covered in presents, and her hands covered with bandaids. Hopper reached over to push her hair out of her eyes and smiled.

 

Maybe Christmas at the Byers should become a tradition.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this one was so fun like im not even joking i cackled while writing the bra scene


	7. In Which Hopper is a Good Papa

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It had been two months since That Night. Two months since the gate had been closed. Two months since Eleven had slept. Hopper was more than a little worried.

_In Which Hopper is a Good Papa_

* * *

It had been two months since That Night.

Two months since the gate had been closed.

Two months since Eleven had  _slept._

It wasn't like Hopper didn't notice. He kept a very,  _very_ close eye on her now - He was watching for signs at all times, making sure she wasn't becoming depressed, or too lonely, or feeling unsafe again. She was actually happier now, and understandably so. She felt safe with Hopper again, she could see her friends again (sometimes), she could sometimes even go on walks out in the woods, as long as she held Hopper's hand.

And yet, something was still bothering her. Something was still haunting her dreams, still making her afraid to close her eyes.

Hopper had no doubt it was the image of the Mind Flayer, red and angry, staring her down, draining her of everything she had in her. He had to admit, sometimes it scared him too, and he didn't want to point out her fear to her - She hated to feel vulnerable, even still.

But after two months, when Eleven was falling asleep in her fruit loops at breakfast and the circles under her eyes were way too deep to be on a twelve year old's face, enough was enough.

"Kid, you've gotta start sleeping." Hopper said bluntly. He set his newspaper on the table as well as his coffee. He gave Eleven a look, and she shifted uncomfortably under his gaze.

"Have been," She mumbled, trying to disappear into the collar of his old t-shirt she had slept in. Her shoulders were pretty much at her ears, and Hopper could tell she was ready to bolt if only her feet were closer to the ground.

"No, you haven't. Cat naps at two pm and sleeping during  _Days of Our Lives_ don't count. That's called  _narcolepsy."_

Eleven didn't get the joke, and Hopper mentally slapped himself for thinking she would.

"Look, kid. I know you don't sleep at night, and you gotta stop that. It's bad for you." He had already picked up his coffee again - he hated seeing Jane like this. She looked sad and scared and like she was hiding something, and he knew that pressuring her to talk about it would only push her farther into her shell. So he dropped it, and instead decided to bring something more positive up.

"So the other day Mike stopped by the office…"

At thirty minutes past when he'd sent Eleven to bed, Hopper knew what to do. It was nine o'clock on the nose, and Hopper stood up, turned the TV off, and walked over to Eleven's door. He knocked twice, and his knock was greeted by a very loud, very  _fake_ snore. He opened the door to find Eleven sitting up on her bed, her thumb tucked in her mouth and her eyes focused intensely on her coloring book. She was delicately coloring inside the lines, trying not to make any mistakes, and also trying not to let her eyes droop too far.

"Hey, girlie." Hopper said, leaning against the door frame. "I know you're not sleeping."

Eleven didn't look up. She carefully colored Raggedy Anne's hair a pale shade of pink and her pointer finger was cupped tightly around her nose as she sucked her thumb. She was ignoring him.

"You gotta sleep." Hopper tried. She curled in on herself a little more. "Your bedtime was thirty minutes ago." No response. He sighed.

"Want me to lay down with you?"

Eleven looked up, and her thumb dropped from her mouth. Hopper took that as a yes, and walked over slowly,moving her coloring book and crayons from the bed.

"C'mon. Scooch."

And she did.

Hopper sat beside her, his legs crossed at the ankles across the bed, and he fluffed the pillows behind them. Eleven looked up at him with big,  _tired_ brown eyes. Hopper rolled his eyes and gestured for her to lay. She did, but her eyes remained open and her arms were stiff atop her blankets. They lay there like that for nearly fifteen minutes before Eleven's tenseness was almost tangible.

"Did I ever tell you about the time I ran over the mailman?" Hopper started. Maybe a story would help. Eleven looked alarmed. "No, he was fine," He grinned, and continued. "So, I was learning to drive, right -"

"Scared." El said, and Hopper looked down at her, startled.

"What's that, baby girl?"

Eleven avoided eye contact.

"Scared. Of the dark. Of the.. monster. At nighttime. Can't sleep." She stuttered. She looked down, and Hopper saw the tears forming in her eyes. He could maybe pretend he didn't notice that, but he couldn't pretend he didn't see the way her chin began to quiver.

"Hey, no, stop. Look at me." Hopper gently took his girl's chin and tilted it up to him, careful not to force her into eye contact. She looked intently at his nose, and he took it as a good sign. "I'm not gonna tell you there's nothing to be afraid of, because you and me know that ain't true." Eleven's lips trembled even more, and Hopper was quick to put a stop to it. "But I can say that I'll always be right here. Nothing can take you from me. I already lost one of my girls, and there is no way I'll lose another. You got that? There is no way I'll let that happen."

Eleven's deep brown eyes met his pale blues, and Hopper held his breath. Her eye contact was rare, and Hopper cherished every moment of it. Her eyes flicked briefly from one eye to the other.

"Promise?" She whispered, and Hopper almost laughed.

"Yes I promise, kid." He smiled, and within seconds Eleven had pulled him into a hug. He pushed a small kiss into her curls and hugged her back. "I'm always right here."

"Stay? All night long?" She said to his shoulder. Hopper hugged a little tighter.

"Course, kid. Course I'll stay."

It was approximately one minute and forty five seconds before Hopper felt Eleven go limp in his arms and heard tiny snores against his chest.

"Love you, girlie."


	8. In Which The Boys are Her Boys

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the small while that Eleven had come back into their lives, the girl had been staying with Karen and Holly during school hours. Every day, picking the party up from school was the most important part of the day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry for the short length, but don't worry -- this one and a few more and they get long again. Trying for weekly updates :)

_In Which_ The  _Boys Are_ Her  _Boys [In Which Everything is Okay; pt 8/?]_

* * *

"When are we getting my boys?"

Karen startled, almost spitting out her tea and spilling a little bit of macaroni onto Holly's chest instead of into her mouth. She had almost forgotten the normally silent girl was there. She looked over to Eleven who sat across the table, swinging her feet and paying more attention to her lunch than to Karen.

"What?" The woman said, taking a papertowel and absently dabbing her baby girl's chest from the spilled food. Holly made an aggravated noise and pushed at her mother's hand.

"My boys. When?" Eleven said again plainly, wiping her hands on her dress. Karen really should try and teach this child table manners.

In the small while that Eleven had come back into their lives; the small time that Karen had known about her and had been convinced not to call the police by both her son and the chief himself, the girl had been staying with her and Holly during school hours. Hopper hated leaving her home alone now, and the boys couldn't play with her while they were at school, and, because she couldn't go out and explore or go to school because of her situation, at least for the next year, Karen would keep her. At least two days a week, just so Hopper knew Eleven wasn't cooped up alone all the time. She would watch, and feed, and teach the girl all she could at her home on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Eleven and Holly got along well, and Karen really didn't mind having another mouth to feed from eight o'clock to three. Eleven liked to help her with laundry, and dishes, and would even try to hold a conversation from time to time. You know, after she started speaking to Karen. (That took a good seven days before she was comfortable enough to talk.) But in that small while, Eleven had never asked that.

"Your boys?"

"My boys. Go get them soon?" Eleven actually looked up from her pasta this time, concerned eyes reaching her babysitter's. "Bored."

Karen stifled a laugh. Eleven, being a twelve year old with an extremely limited vocabulary, had claimed Mike and his friends as her own. And, honestly, Karen thought this was quite endearing.

"We'll go get your boys soon, El. At three, remember? Three o'clock."

"3-0-0. Get my boys." The girl said happily, looking back to her meal and picking it apart with her fingers before plopping some messily into her mouth. Karen smiled and shook her head.

"Use your fork, dear."


	9. In Which There are Always Wednesday Afternoon Walks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eleven has a schedule, and she likes it that way. Ever since she was reunited with her boys, El has been busy. No matter how busy she gets, though, Wednesday afternoons will always be her favorite.

_In Which There are Always Wednesday Afternoon Walks_

 

* * *

Hopper's favorite part of the week had to be the Wednesday afternoon walks through the woods with his daughter.

It hadn't been even close to a year yet, and already Eleven was getting antsy. She wanted to go outside, to be free, to see her friends. But she couldn't do that all the time, not yet, and so they came up with a compromise.

Saturdays were friend days, and the boys could come to the house from noon to six. On Tuesday and Thursday, Eleven would spend the day with Mrs. Wheeler and Holly from eight am to six pm while Hopper was at work, because he didn't like to leave her all by herself very much anymore. Friday Evenings Mike would come over for dinner. And Wednesday afternoons, at three PM, Hopper would come home early and they would go on a walk. Not out in public or anything, but through the woods. They would hold hands and walk amongst the trees and talk about their days. Hopper cherished these days, because on these days he got to see Eleven's eyes light up in the afternoon sunlight, and he got to see her happier than he normally saw her. And she would always hold his hand, without fail. It made him feel warm, even if it was only a temporary arrangement until she could leave the house on her own.

Hopper didn't like to think about that. Instead, he relished Wednesdays when he would be greeted at the door by Eleven barreling into him with a hug, shouting his name as she ran down the hallway, because she was just so happy he was home. He loved those hugs.

Today was no different.

The locks clicked open, Hopper stepped in, and instantly was greeted by -

"hhhhhhhHHHHHOOOOOOOOOPPPPPPP!" Eleven screeched, running at him and flinging her thin arms around his middle. Hopper laughed, as usual, and ruffled her mop of brown curls.

"Missed you too, kiddo. You doing alright?" He asked. She looked up at him and grinned, a sure sign that she was.

She was dressed carefully in a new outfit collected from Nancy's hand me downs, a white long-sleeved turtle neck with pink roses and a navy blue jumper dress that reached just above her knees with a little red belt at the waist. She paired it with some too-big white socks and her old white Converses, the ones she always wore for their walks.

"Ready!" She said cheerfully as she stepped back. Hopper smiled too.

"Alright, let me grab somethin' to eat and we'll head out."

Eleven sat as patiently as she could at the table as Hopper ate a ham sandwich and she stole his chips, but by the time he was halfway done she was swinging her feet impatiently and was ready to go.

"Go!" She said, being too excited to think about word choice. "Go, go outside now!"

Hopper looked up from his meal and quirked an eyebrow.

"Say that again?"

Eleven sighed. She knew now that she could talk however she wanted, especially if it was something she needed, but she also knew that Hopper liked her to work on her sentences when it was just something she  _wanted._ She tried again.

"Hop, please can I go on a walk with you." She said slowly, each word divided into syllables so she could make sure to get it right. Talking was just so  _hard._ Hopper grinned and plopped his sandwich down on the plate before wiping his hands together.

"Alright, go get your coat on. It's like forty degrees out, and we don't need you getting sick."

Eleven grinned and ran as fast as she could to her room to grab the brown coat that was only slightly too big on her.

"Ready!" She yelled, out of breath as she stopped at the door. Hopper was slightly behind her, grabbing his hat and coat.

"Alright, alright, we're going."

El hopped out the door, laughing as she skipped.

"Hey, now, what's our rule?" Hopper called after her. Eleven stopped, turned around, and dashed back to take Hopper's hand. She grinned up at him, her eyes fixed on his nose, and he smiled back.

They walked in silence for a good five minutes, until they were moderately deep into the woods and 1/3 of the way down their newly-tramped-down path, before Hopper spoke.

"So, how was your day?" He said, careful to squeeze Eleven's hand first so he wouldn't startle her. He loved these walks, because it was one of the only times he got to talk to her with no distractions and no attitude, the other being while he read her her nightly stories. Eleven screwed up her mouth, thinking long and hard about her answer. Hopper smiled. He was used to that little face - it was the one that meant she wanted to answer truthfully, and that she was going to go into detail so she needed time to think about the words. He loved that little face.

"Good." She said, nodding her head for punctuation. "Watched Ses-a-me Street. Ate all my food in the morning. Drew two whole pictures," She held up her fingers and looked to Hopper before continuing, "Took a shower. Watched  _As The World Turns._ Dusty kissed on Meg today. Lily said that was 'cheat-ing'. Dunno what that means." She paused and thought a moment more before her face lit up. "Oh! Saw a weird dog. Outside. On the window."

Hopper chuckled at her excitement. And at her misuse of "on".

"Oh yeah? What kinda dog?"

There was that face again.

"Uhm.. Big.." She took her hand from his and held her fingers up at her head beside her ears. "Big… horns?" She questioned. "No toes."

At that, Hopper straight up laughed. Eleven jumped a little.

"A deer. You saw a deer, kid." He said after he caught is breath. Eleven made a little face.

"Deer." She repeated, then smiled. She looked back up to Hopper. "Saw a deer!" She paused. "Hop?"

"Hmm?" Hopper thrummed, looking up at the sky. It was awfully blue and pretty for such a cold day, and for that he was grateful. From what he could gather, Eleven loved the sunshine.

"Love you," She said, hopping over a stick in a very exaggerated manner and making a little "oof" sound as she hit the ground again.

Hopper grinned again and shook his head.

"Love you too, kid."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> its late im so sorry   
> I've got 15 chapters planned but i feel like i should do more??? idk i just know know when I'll have time but im in love with this story   
> hmu if you got ideas or something


	10. In Which Mike Explains Sex

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It was a hard topic to approach -- one you had to be careful, direct, and unashamed about. It was difficult, especially with children. That's why Mike was glad he was only 13 years old and had no intention of having anything to do with it for much longer. Until there came a question.

_In Which Mike Explains Sex_

* * *

 

"Mike? What is a 'sex'?"

Mike stopped for a second, and set down his milk glass. It was about one pm on a Saturday, a friend day for Eleven, and she and Mike were at the table after lunch. Karen had gone to get Holly dressed for her preschool event that night and Nancy had gone off quite some time ago to study. That left Mike and Eleven alone, and left Eleven with a particular question.

"Oh, uh. Sexes are… Like. You're a girl, and I'm a boy." Mike tried. He hadn't been prepared to answer this question, but maybe he was doing alright.

"No." Eleven said plainly, and Mike felt her stop kicking her feet under the table. She was getting impatient.

"Uh.. Girls have… different parts than boys." Mike flushed a little, but this was okay. This was fine.

Eleven's voice got a little petulant.

"No."

"Okay, fine. Boys have.. uhm… penises, and girls have -"

"No, what is a sex?!"

Mike took a sip of his milk, not understanding at first. He sat for a minute. And then hit him, right as his milk went down his throat, and he nearly died.

"UHM-" He sputtered, coughing and clutching his chest. Eleven had startled out of her chair and was now standing, her arms ready as if she were about to punch whatever villain had caused Mike to choke. Mike wasn't ready for this. He was not ready to give The Talk. As soon as he calmed, he sat for a second. Eleven looked at him and made a face.

"What?" Mike said honestly. Eleven stomped her foot, and her fork slid off the table from the other end.

"What is one?"

"Okay, that's fine, I was hoping you'd forget. Okay. Okay. Um. Uh. Sex is when -" He paused, his hands trying to speak for him as he made a pained expression. "Sex is when… when two people…."

Mike was continuously putting his hands together and then pulling them apart. He couldn't seem to get the words out.

"They make together." She tried, also putting her hands together. Mike flushed bright red.

"No! I mean- yes, kind of, but - " He didn't know where he was going with this. "I'm gonna get Nancy."

He turned away so that Eleven wasn't looking at his red face and attempted to walk upstairs, but he was stopped by an invisible force. Not harshly, but a soft tug at his being, and when he turned around El had a tiny drip of blood coming from her nostril.

"You." She said softly, and Mike couldn't fight that. She looked so confused, and Mike knew how uneasy she still was with everyone but him. And so he gathered himself, took Eleven by the hand, and led her upstairs to his room. Where he was sure no one would walk in on him having this extremely uncomfortable conversation.

Once they arrived in Mike's room, the older boy sat down carefully on his bed and gestured for the girl to do the same.

"Okay. So, you know how… You know how I have a mom and a dad, right?"

Eleven nodded, but the look on her face told Mike that she didn't quite understand where this was going. He continued.

"I wouldn't be here without a mom and a dad. Both of them."

"Dead?" Eleven said suddenly, gasping. Mike laughed, and Eleven looked extremely offended.

"No, no, not dead. Its more like…. Okay. So you've watched mom make lunch, right? Without the peanut butter and the jelly, she can't make a sandwich. Without a mom and a dad, they can't make a baby."

"Baby? Why a baby?" Eleven was even more confused now, and Mike's face got even redder (if that was possible). He wasn't doing a very good job at this.

"S-sex is how a mom and dad make a baby. Its the process the man and woman do to… to get a baby."

"Like buying Eggos." Eleven finished for him, or tried to, thinking she understood it. "Can…" Mike saw in her face that she couldn't seem to find the right words then, and so she pointed carefully to herself and then to Mike. "We get a baby?" She paused, then pointed again. "Boy," She said with her finger at his chest, and then to herself, "Girl."

"Aah, no!" Mike shouted suddenly, and too loudly, he realized, as he saw Eleven flinch back. "I- I mean, not that I don't - I mean, not- not now, we're just kids, I just-"

"Kids can't buy a baby?"

"People don't buy babies, El. They…They make them. We can't- shouldn't make them."

She held her hands out, one held far to the left and the other to the right. "Peanut butter." She said to one, then to the other, "Jelly…" She put the two fists beside each other, close enough that they were touching. "Baby?"

Mike sighed. It was going to be a long day.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short and sweet, and right to the point. Silly, too. Hope you like it! Don't worry; more long stories are to come ;)


	11. In Which Eleven Throws Up on Dustin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Normally, Eleven was up at 7 am without a doubt every single morning, ready to annoy her father figure. But today? Today Eleven was nothing but a lump under the blankets, her lights off and soft, baby-like snores filling the room. Hopper should have known something was wrong.

**March 5, 1985. Tuesday.**

"In March? Yeah, I know. Yeah, I do know how cold it's been. So school's out for the boys?" Hopper waited for the response, and nodded to no one in particular at the answer. "Of course they'd want to see her. Uh-huh. Yep. Yeah, sure, I'll drop her by on the way to the station. Yep. Even though its just a Monday. Thanks, Karen. Uh-huh. Alright, bye-bye."

The chief hung up the phone and sighed before pulling the curtain and looking outside. Karen was right. It was snowing already outside, and he could see nearly an inch on the ground. It didn't look like much, but the weatherman had said to expect nearly five inches by that night, and there was a 35% chance of sleet. Not that Hopper believed that. But, school officials had called the day off, so Hopper wouldn't argue. Not if it meant his little girl could stay with some friends instead of cooped up in this house alone.

"Eleven!" He called through the house, pulling a flannel over the t-shirt he had slept in. He really should see about getting central heating instead of just space heaters in this place. "El, kiddo, you wanna go see your friends?" He rapped lightly on her door and closed his eyes, trying to blink away the remnants of sleep from them before he opened the door.

Normally, he wouldn't even have to open her door in the mornings. She was a moderately early riser, but didn't quite know what to do with her time if she awoke before her father figure. And so at seven AM, every morning, she would hop onto his bed and stare at him until he woke up. It usually didn't take him very long.

But today? Today Eleven was nothing but a lump under the blankets, her lights off and soft, baby-like snores filling the room. Hopper suppressed a chuckle and walked into the room.

"Time to get up, kid," He said plainly, turning on the light and moving to sit beside her on the bed. He placed a hand on her back. "Its morning, El."

"Mmmm," Eleven groaned, and the little bundle of blankets curled up tighter. Hopper smiled.

"Nope, time to get up." He said as he grabbed the top of the blankets and pulled them briskly off of the child. Eleven was curled up tightly around her teddy, dressed in that cheap little Garfield nightgown Hopper had bought her so many months ago, and as soon as the blankets were pulled off she pulled them back up without moving a muscle.

"Nooo," She whined.

In the back of his mind, Hopper was concerned. But then again, Eleven was getting older. It was probably just early onset teenage laziness. He remembered when he was young, just getting to those teen years, and sleeping till noon or sometimes one in the afternoon. And so he brushed it off and reached out again, this time slipping a hand under her back and pulling her into a sitting position.

"Come on, Eleven. You gotta get up, kid. Get movin'."

She didn't resist him, but she did lean into his chest when she sat up, going from lying in one direction to resting heavily on him to the other and completely bypassing the sitting up straight option. Hopper pushed at her.

"Up."

It had taken nearly twenty minutes to get Eleven up and moving, but by eight thirty four the pair was up, dressed, and in the car. Karen had opted to stay home with the kids that day due to the fact that she was the only mom who didn't work that knew of Eleven and that Mike asked to have them over the second he woke up. And so, once Hopper got Eleven and himself ready, they were in the car on the way to the Wheeler's on Hopper's way to work.

"Be good," Eleven heard Hopper call as she walked into the Wheeler's home, and she offered him a small smile before Karen shut the door. Of course she'd be good - but… Something wasn't right. She felt funny, a little like how she felt after she used her powers. But she hadn't used her powers, and yet her head was throbbing, and her eyes were burning, and she couldn't seem to shake the feeling of something not being quite right. But it would be alright, because she was with her friends now, or would be soon.

She gave a fleeting glance at the light snow falling outside, and she smiled.

It was completely unexpected.

had taken Holly out to go shopping after lunch, and had left Nancy in charge. Said girl had gone upstairs to work on math homework, leaving the boys and Eleven downstairs playing a a rather intense game of Uno.

"Dude, you knew I didn't have red!" Lucas cried, glaring fiercely at Dustin. Dustin stuck his tongue out, and laughed as Lucas drew another card. "Hah! Reverse! Now you have to draw, Dusty~" Lucas said in a singsong voice. It was Dustin's turn to glare then, and he drew with a rapid jerking motion. "A red 7. Okay, who's got the best hand…" He glanced around, going off of the 'Intense Uno' variation the boys had come up with where each 7 the dealer had to switch cards with another player.

"Don't look at me, look at Will!" Mike cried, pointing across the table and protecting the hand of three he was holding. Will held his cards up in defense.

"I mean, you can if you want, but… I have twenty two cards, Dustin. I'm in double digits."

Dustin turned his attention to his last option - Eleven. The girl was sitting right across from him at the table, perched on the edge of the chair with her knees pulled up to her chin.

"Alright, El. Looks like it's you. Hand 'er over," The curly haired boy held his hand out, making a grabbing motion. Eleven turned her attention briskly to him, her eyes clouded and her mouth gaping. Something was up.

"El?" Mike tried, cocking his head a little. El pulled her knees down from the chair and looked at her deck.

She didn't feel well. She thought fleetingly that she might be  _sick,_ because her throat felt scratchy and her eyes felt itchy and her tummy felt funny like it did back in the winter of last year when she got a - what did Hopper call it - a  _cold._  Or maybe the  _flu,_ whatever the difference was.

That was a fitting name. She did feel cold. So cold, in fact, that she didn't want to pull her knees from her chest because they were the only thing keeping her from shivering, even if it wasn't working too well. But… This was different than before. Her tummy felt  _bad._ Eleven knew what  _bad_ felt like because  _bad_ was how she felt after using her powers.  _Bad_ was how she felt looking in at Mike from outside when it wasn't safe to see him after The Monster.  _Bad_ was how she felt when she was lying in Hopper's lap in the bathroom floor last winter, and how she felt when she  _threw up._ She felt kind of like that now, only more. She didn't have time to think before she felt her mouth watering, and she knew what that meant because of last time, and so she started to stand up - Hopper had made her stay in the bathroom last time she felt like this, and so that was where she was going to go. Except the boys were talking to her, were waiting on her, and she couldn't figure out how to tell them she felt  _bad,_ and then it just happened.

She projectile vomited across the card table.

"Woah, what the f**k?!" Lucas shrieked, jumping up from the table. Will leaped back as well, nothing but a squeak coming from him. Mike, too, was able to get back in time, but Dustin and the cards were caught in the cross-fire.

"Oh, come on, I just got this jacket!" Dustin cried, standing up angrily and shaking the foul substance off of his arm. And then El made a choking noise, and the attention was turned back to her. She felt  _awful,_ and that was even worse than  _bad,_ because her tummy didn't stop feeling funny after she  _threw up,_ and Dustin looked very upset, and Eleven felt a _wful_ because seeing the mess she made made her want to cry.

"Get her to the bathroom, you idiots!" Lucas shouted, and Mike and Will moved quickly to take her arms and lead her to the small bathroom. She let them lead her, because she didn't know what else to do. She couldn't really think right now. They got her there not a second too late - as soon as they had deposited her unceremoniously in front of the toilet she lurched again, and Mike was quick to pick up on the tears that were now coming from her eyes as she vomited.

"Nancy!" Dustin called, his voice cracking as he was still frozen in place in the living room. "Nance!"

"What do you want?" The teen called from her room. Dustin groaned.

"Eleven just barfed all over the place!"

"What?!" Nancy called again, and this time both Dustin and Mike chimed in.

"Eleven threw up!"

"Oh, Sh**. I have to go, Jonathan, I'll- I'll call you back." She hung up the phone quickly before barreling down the stairs. "Mike, come here and help me with this!"

Eleven was sobbing in earnest now, and, as he was bent beside her trying to offer comfort, Mike wasn't sure he wanted to go. Eleven was very sure that she didn't want Mike to go, either.

"Can't right now, Nance!" He shouted.

"Oh no, you are not leaving me to clean this up on my own." She called back, and Mike groaned.

"It's okay El, you just hold on, I'll be right back. Lucas will stay here with you, right, Luke?"

Before he had time to answer, Mike had rushed out of the room with Will close at his heels, leaving Lucas dumbfounded in the doorway. He started to protest, but was cut off by a sob and gag from Eleven, and so he moved cautiously towards her.

"Hey El, hey, shh, it's okay," He said, trying to sound soft like he would if this was his sister. That was hard to do, partly because he was still very grossed out at the sight of partially digested Eggo waffles and what looked like former apple slices on the table and partly because this was  _Eleven._ His best friend's girlfriend who could beat people up with her brain and had killed a man before and could barely talk. Not his seven year old sister who liked dolls and watched Rainbow Brite and once swallowed a penny because she thought it would taste like the color 'shiny'. But he pretended like she was, or at least like she was similar, and moved closer. "It's alright, just… Shh."

He patted her back for a good two minutes as she heaved and cried before she finally settled and leaned back.

"Lucas?" She questioned, and he could see the fever clouding up her eyes and cheeks. "Whats…bad feeling. Sick?"

Lucas sighed, and thought a minute. Of course she was sick. It was cold out, and from what Mike had told them she used to be confined in a sterile environment with no place for germs. One foot out of the house and she probably attracted every germ and bacteria from ten miles away.

"Yeah, you're sick. Probably some kinda bug, El." He said, shrugging. "They suck, but you won't die from it. Just a lot of…" He imitated vomiting then, and she nodded. She had been sick before. Two times, in fact - but she had never felt like this. She had never felt so disgusting in the pit of her stomach for so long. And she certainly had never  _thrown up_ on her friends. She started to cry again.

"When does it stop?"

Lucas shrugged, but grimaced as the girl before him curled in on herself, her hands on her stomach.

"Soon. Just get it over with, and soon you'll be fine again and we can make fun of Dustin for getting puked on by Mike's Telekinetic girlfriend."

By the time Nancy came in with a bottle of Pepto and a glass of water, Eleven had fallen asleep with her head in Lucas' lap, and the boy in question looked up at Nancy with pleading eyes.

'Help me,' He mouthed desperately.

'No,' Nancy mouthed back with a smile, setting her haul down and slowly closing the door.


	12. In Which Flo Meets Eleven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hopper was upset that everything seemed to happen to his daughter. She had been tested upon, and chased after, and had had to live in the woods. And now, as of yesterday, she was sick -- and there was nothing he could do to fix it. But he would try his best, even if that meant violating the one-year agreement. [Takes place the day after the last chapter]

_**March 6, 1985. Wednesday.** _

Hopper was pissed, to say the least.

Not at the kids, or Nancy Wheeler, or even Karen Wheeler for leaving the kids to go to the store. No, instead, he was mad at himself, for taking his daughter out of the house and heading off to work when he knew in the back of his mind that she was acting funny.

More than that, however, he was mad at the world. Eleven did  _not_ deserve this. His little girl, his tiny little girl who went through years of physical and mental abuse, his girl who just had a very traumatic year, his girl who had saved the world  _twice,_ did not deserve to catch another bug. And yet she had, and as soon as he arrived at four PM to the Wheeler household on March fifth to pick her up, the little girl was piled up on the couch with her head in Mike's lap and an old mixing bowl on the ground in front of her.

The others looked quite okay, only a little exhausted, and were piled around the living room with their eyes trained on the television. Mike was absently running his fingers through Eleven's unruly curls, and Nancy stood in front of him at the door with a nervous expression on her face.

"Everything's fine, just…" The oldest Wheeler child sighed and lowered her voice. "El got a little sick to her stomach. It was in front of the boys, and I think she's a little embarrassed about it, but she's been mostly okay since then. We wanted to call, but…"

"But you can't talk about her on the phone yet. I get it." Hopper finished. He sighed and put his palm to his forehead. "The boys okay?"

"Dustin's a little queasy, but they mostly seem alright…" She nodded, looking to the boys in the living room. When she turned back, Hopper could tell she was exhausted.

"Hey, Ellie? Get your things, kid, it's time to go." He called, stepping in and kicking the snow from his shoes.

Eleven's eyes looked up slightly, and without her normal hesitation, she began to stand up. Immediately she whined and put her hands to her tummy, and Hopper could see the uncomfortable pout on her lips. Mike was at her side in an instant, his pale hand on her shoulder.

"Are you okay, El? Do you need help?" He asked, and Hopper could hear the love in his voice. El let her eyes close and shook her head.

"Hop." She mumbled, and then she looked to her father figure. He understood the look in her eyes immediately.

"Alright, kiddo, c'mon," Hopper said as he walked over and leaned over in front of her. Within just a few moments he had her up on his hip and she was clinging to his jacket like her life depended it. Mike looked worried sick, and Hopper hoped briefly that he wasn't a sympathy puker. Before he could worry too much about it, however, Mike was pressing Eleven's boots into Hopper's free hand and had his warm thin fingers wrapped around Eleven's socked-foot comfortingly.

"You'll be okay, El." He said softly, "You'll be fine in no time, and then you can come over and we can play Uno again," Michael then turned to Hopper. "Uhm. Make sure she drinks some water, okay? She hasn't really touched any, and she threw up a lot…I don't want her to get dehydrated, and…"

"I think he knows how to take care of his own kid, Mike," Lucas retorted from his place on the floor. Mike shot him a look before returning his gaze to Hopper.

"Just.. Let me know when she's okay?"

At this, Hopper smiled and patted his shoulder.

"I'll let you know. Thanks for watchin' her, Nancy." Hopper turned his attention to the older child and she gave him a little smile. He turned for the door, and over his shoulder El said a tiny, "Bye, Mike," before they were both out in the snow.

The rest of the day seemed to last forever. Eleven made it almost all the way home before being sick again, and, to Hopper's dismay, when she was she wasn't entirely out of the car and it had gotten all over the door. He had carried her the rest of the way to the house, had unlocked the locks and had gotten her clean and settled before returning to disinfect the car door. That night had been a long one, spent with lots of broken objects from telekinesis left unchecked and late night trips to the bathroom, and by the time Hopper and Eleven fell asleep side by side in the living room, it was two AM.

Hopper woke up late the next morning, and when he did, it was too late to have a decent plan for the day. Or to call in sick to work to care for his daughter.

Frantically, at seven forty three AM, Hopper dialed the Wheeler household.

"Hi Karen," He said, trying to sound positive. "I hate to ask it, but can you take El today? She's sick, and…. You're going out today. Okay. Yes, no, it's no problem. Yep. I'll give her your love. Thanks anyways, Karen. Yep. Bye-bye."

Hopper hung up the phone and ran his hand over his face, also running over his options.

He could call Joyce, but he was nearly positive she worked today, and even if she didn't, he didn't want to risk exposing Will to whatever this was even more than he already had been. He could leave her home alone, but, if the other times she had been sick were any indication, she wasn't safe from herself when she had a fever. Not with all the rogue floating items, rogue falling items, and rogue snotty sneezes (She hadn't quite figured out the art of the tissue yet). So that wasn't an option either.

The last option wasn't even really an option, and yet, here he was, at eight twelve AM on a Wednesday, in the car on the way to work with Eleven curled up in the passenger seat. Today, he wasn't scheduled for patrol and that meant, more than likely, the day was instead filled with paperwork. He could keep an eye on Eleven and do paperwork at the same time.

"Mike called." Eleven mumbled to her knees, which were still pajama-clad and were pulled up to her chest. Normally, Eleven loved to be out of the house on the rare occasions she could be. But today, on this one abnormally cold day in March, when her stomach was feeling rambunctious and her head was hurting and her feet were cold, she would prefer very much to stay at home, thank you.

Hopper glanced at her from the drivers seat, and when he saw how awful she looked he regretted his decision to bring her along instantly. But, it was the only option, so instead he responded.

"Oh yeah? What'd he have to say?"

Eleven let her feverish little head lean onto the cool glass of the window.

"Said wished I was better. Dustin is sick. Mike worries."

Hopper nodded and sighed. He knew it was a bug and not just a passing thing as soon as she was sick in the car, but that didn't mean he hadn't hoped. He was about to say something else to her, or offer comfort, or apologize for making her get out and about today, but she had already checked out of the conversation and had her eyes fixed on her shoes and so he decided against it.

He really did feel awful about getting her out of the house today, but he couldn't leave her home alone. Instead he had got her up and tied her shoes on her feet, letting her stay in the pajamas they had received as hand me downs from Nancy (a little yellow and white polka dotted two piece consisting of a dress like shirt and long, wide pants) and letting her pick a stuffed animal to carry with her.

This was terribly reminiscent of the long days in the past when he had bundled Sara in the early morning for doctor's visits, allowing her to pick one of her many stuffed toys to bring with her and letting her stay in her white little footies. It differed every day with her, the stuffed animal did, and one day it would be a plush baby doll, the next a hard plastic alligator toy wrapped in a baby blanket. With El, Hopper was sure that it would always be the same if they ever had to do this again. She had grown rather attached to the medium sized dollar store bear he had purchased for her when she caught the flu last February, and he would be lying if he said that didn't make him smile. In this whole parenting mess, at least he had done  _something_ right, even if that something was a small cream colored stuffie with at least two stains from spilled syrup and a few from nosebleeds.

Eleven hugged the bear to her chest, it being trapped between her knees and chest and acting as a headrest, and Hopper reached over and put a hand on her back. Without even realizing he was doing it, he began rubbing soothing circles into the fabric covering the hot skin of her back.

"Don't feel good." Eleven grumbled into her bear. Hopper sighed, and for the first time in a while it was from sadness and not annoyance.

"I know, sweet girl. I know."

"Go home." She whined in response, drawling the last word out longer than necessary. Hopper felt his heart clench when he realized that she said the plea through tears.

"I gotta go to work, Ellie, you know I do." He said, his hand pushing harder onto her back to offer more comfort. "I can't let you stay home, but I can try with all my might to get us home early, okay?"

He heard a little sob.

"Okay." She croaked. "Halfway happy."

They arrived at the station a little later than Hopper was supposed to, and he was sure Flo would have something to say about it.

Sh*t. Flo.

Hopper hadn't thought of his coworkers. Of course, the year wasn't close to up, but she wasn't in any danger being out of the house just to go to his work. He kind of thought that four months should be enough for her to go out for one day, but his coworkers didn't know about her at all. How would he explain this?

He had the birth certificate, and Flo was a very trustworthy person, so maybe he would tell her the truth. That Eleven was his daughter from a previous fling that he didn't remember and her mother couldn't take care of her anymore.

Kind of true, even if that 'fling' was actually a run in with monsters and alternate dimensions and Government conspiracies that he could never forget.

Eleven was his daughter. Her name was Jane. She had only been with him for a few weeks and he didn't want to get rumors started before she got into school. He could do this.

Hopper stepped out of his car and went over to the passenger side, making sure El wasn't leaned against the window before opening it.

"You think you can handle walking in, Janie?" He said softly. Eleven looked up, dried tears staining her gray-tinged face and her lips in a subconscious pout. She nodded, but reached for his hand to stand up.

Hopper walked by her side slowly, because she was  _this_  close to tripping over her feet as she clutched her bear and his hand for dear life, but when they reached the door to go in she hid behind his back. He let go of her hand to open the door, and she instead clung to his jacket.

"You're late, James." Flo said sternly, not looking up from her paperwork. Hopper sighed and let the door close behind him and his tag-a-long.

"I know, Flo, but listen, there's a good -"

"No buts about it, Jim, you are the  _Chief_ of Hawkins and you can't be getting here an hour later than your entire staff at least twice a week." Flo actually slammed her pen down at this and looked up, and when she did she caught sight of Eleven's fingers wrapped in her co-worker's jacket. She stood up, confused. "Who's this?"

Hopper winced at the concern in her voice and at the little hiccup of a sob El gave from behind him, but pushed his girl out in front of him anyways.

"Flo, I'd like you to meet Jane. My daughter."

Flo made a face.

"Since when have you had a daughter?" She asked, then smiled softly at El. "And why is she in her PJs?"

El edged closer to Hopper and closed her eyes.

"Since a thing I had and forgot about after Diane, that she doesn't need to hear about right now." Hopper widened his eyes at Flo like it was a sore spot they would cover later and continued. "She's sick and I couldn't get a sitter, so I brought her in."

Flo's mouthed, "Talk to me later," in that upset, motherly tone before softening her features and looking to Eleven. "Are you feeling a little bit under the weather, dearie?"

Eleven opened her eyes and looked up to Hopper for guidance. He smiled apologetically at her, and she nodded to the older woman in front of her. She had asked a question, and Eleven had answered, but she still was looking at her.

"Threw up." Eleven said bluntly. The woman looked as if she expected more, so Eleven tried to elaborate. She held her bear in the crook of her elbow and held up her fingers. "Eight times."

Flo pursed her lips in a little frown and sighed.

"Oh, that's just no good, you poor dear. Why don't you go on in and pile up on that couch there and I bring you some water, alright?"

Eleven followed Flo's pointed finger and nodded, because her legs were feeling too wobbly right now to keep her up for long. She walked over to the couch by Hopper's office and sat with a  _plop_  before beginning to take off her shoes.

Once Eleven was on the other side of the room, Flo looked to Hopper and crossed her arms. He had some explaining to do.

Flo had been with Hopper from the first time he set foot in Hawkins, and she liked to think she knew most of what was going on in his life. She knew when he had a terrible crush on Joyce Byers, and she knew when he relapsed because of thinking of his daughter and wife, and she knew when he had had a fight outside of work whenever he came in. Flo liked to think she was all-knowing when it came to Jim Hopper, because, while he didn't wear his heart on his sleeve like some, he was very easy to read by those who knew him well enough.

Flo  _did_ know him well enough. She had been watching recently, and had noticed that for the past - what was it, year? Year and a half? - he had been happier. Hopper had been cracking jokes, and teasing, and coming in fewer and fewer days with that scowl on his face that she had grown so accustomed to. Sometimes he would come in angry, or annoyed, or huffy, but it was different now. Had been different for the past year or so.

"James Hopper, how long have you had this girl?" She hissed, her arms crossed and her face urgent. Hopper shrugged.

"Not long, Flo. Her aunt dropped her off, I don't know, a week or two ago. Said her mom's got some kinda brain condition and they can't take her anymore. Flo, I promise you, I had no idea she even existed until-"

"No, sir, you have not only had that child for a week." Flo spit. Hopper looked at her and made a perplexed face, so she elaborated. "You have been comin' in here the past year and a half and you've been different, Hop. Don't think I haven't noticed it. I just didn't know what to think of it, and now you come here telling me you have a  _child?"_

"Look, Flo, we had to be quiet about it." Hopper started, whispering like he was keeping this from the girl on the couch. He had to be authentic. "Her mom's in rough condition, and she's not been healthy herself. The second Hawkins found out about it, we'd have people all over the place wanting to know exactly how she came to be, and she's not been well enough for that."

Flo sighed. She understood that. Hawkins was a curious little town, always jumping on anything unusual to make something big of it. Most of that was because nothing ever seemed to happen here, but it had only gotten worse since the Byers boy's disappearance the fall of '83. The town had gotten a taste of excitement and wanted to keep it alive, and Flo understood why Hopper wouldn't want a sick little girl tied up in all of that. Especially after the government conspiracy that had surfaced last November and the rumors of a little Russian spy. She nodded at him.

"That's fair, I guess." She thought a moment, looking down at the floor. Her face screwed up. "Last year, when your sister left her kid with you. That was this one, wasn't it."

It wasn't a question. Hopper made a noise like he'd been caught and nodded. Flo put a hand on his shoulder.

"You can't keep things from me, Hop."

And then she was walking over to get a cup of water, and Hopper sighed a sigh of relief. She bought it.

The morning passed uneventfully. Hopper stayed in his office, doing paperwork and dealing every once and a while with an angry citizen or a concerned parent or a rebellious teenager. Every chance he got, he would step outside and check on El, sitting down beside her and checking her temperature with the back of his hand. She had been asleep almost all morning, and it was only at the fifth time Hopper checked her temperature that she opened her bleary eyes.

"Hop." She mumbled. Hopper gave her a stressed smile in response and helped her sit up.

"Hey, sweet girl, how're you feeling?"

Eleven screwed up her face, because she always did that when she thought. She did not feel well - she was shivering, and her stomach was flipping about with a pressured ache right in the center, and her mouth was doing that weird watery thing again - and by this point, she knew exactly what it meant. She hated this feeling.

"Throw up." She whispered, because just because she knew what was going to happen did  _not_ mean she wanted it to, and it made her quite sad to have to say the word aloud. However, she also knew now that when you feel like this, you must go to the bathroom, and in this new (new, loud, and  _too bright,_ she might add) place she wasn't quite sure where that was. And so she had to say the word, even if she hated it and hated what it indicated even more so. Hopper winced.

"Oh, sh*t, okay, c'mon, little lady," The chief helped her up by her arm, carefully catching her when her wobbly legs couldn't hold her up. Eleven made a little whining noise mingled with a sob, because she absolutely  _hated_ this part. It made her feel nasty and unclean, and now, after yesterday, made her think of the  _grossed-out_ faces of her friends. Faces that looked both angry and pitying at the same time, like that first time they found her almost two years ago. Of course, those faces turned into sympathy very quickly, but during that fleeting second when it was just her staring at the face of Dustin, covered in her mess, all she could see was that disgusted, angry, pitying face that reminded her of being in the woods so long ago.

And now she thought of that every additional time she was sick, and it made her very upset on top of the gross feeling already residing inside of her. She was annoyed, to say the least. Annoyed and feeling quite ill, and Hopper was quick to pick up on that.

"I'm sorry, girlie, I know you hate it, but it's gotta happen. C'mon, right in here," Hopper said to her, and he barely noticed Flo watching them as he led El into the single-stall bathroom and sat with her as she vomited.

El cried when she was sick, of course, because it was awful, and she felt awful, and having to do it was awful, and it surely tasted awful, but Hopper petted her through her tears and mess and even offered her a styrofoam cup of water as she was finishing up. She sat up and took the cup of water, not even noticing that the one who handed Hopper the cup for her was still standing in the doorway. She took a few tiny sips with shaky hands, and breathed in and out like Hopper had taught her before. It was about seven minutes just sitting there in silence, Hopper rubbing her back and her trying to take in more water, before someone spoke up.

"How are you liking daddy's work, hon?" Flo asked from the doorway, giving a sympathetic smile. Eleven didn't have time to respond before her tummy lurched again, and she had to lean over the toilet very quickly to accommodate it. Flo laughed a small, light-hearted laugh. "Oh, that bad, huh?"

"Very funny, Flo. She's suffering enough without your humor." Hopper smiled back at her, but his smile was pained. He rubbed his daughter's back and sighed.

Fifteen uneventful minutes took place after getting El resettled on the couch, but at the end of those fifteen uneventful minutes, Eleven whimpered in her sleep. She whimpered and coughed a little, and curled in on herself, and Hopper's heart clenched.

That was it. He was calling it a day, and would take an early lunch to take her home. He was sure there was some paperwork in here somewhere that he could take home with him and get done there; Flo would be sure to understand.

He stood up, took a seat by Eleven to dress her in her coat for the journey home, when it happened. Flo had gone back to her desk to grab a waste basket, presumably to place beside Eleven's couch, mumbling "New parents," as she did so, when the phone rang.

"Crack-house busted down on West 17th," Flo called from her desk. Hopper looked up from his place beside Eleven, who had just woken up and was groggily asking where she was, and grimaced.

"Send Callahan and Powell out," He called. He was asking Eleven if she wanted lunch when Flo continued.

"Already there. They need you to go file the report, Chief."

Hopper groaned. He couldn't take El with him; it was dangerous near explosion sights, and she probably wouldn't even be able to make the car ride. Plus the year wasn't even close to up, and he wasn't supposed to be taking her out of the house, let alone around town. But, at the same time, he couldn't leave her without supervision, even if her powers had been only affecting small, inconspicuous things this morning. (A spilled coffee cup and a few broken pen shafts weren't anything to write home about.) He was thinking fleetingly whether or not he would have time to run her by home or Joyce's (or if Joyce would even be home) when Flo spoke up.

"You go on Hop, I'll watch your girl."

Hopper looked up from his place on the couch and let out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding. He thought for a moment and sighed, because he wasn't sure if leaving her with Flo was such a good idea, either.

"Flo, you really don't have to.. She's a bit of a handful." He patted Eleven's shoulder and the girl startled a little, groggily looking up with a look of disgust and confusion on her features. Flo chuckled.

"Yeah, she looks it." She joked, "Really, Hop. I got four kids and six grandkids. I know how to sit for a sick one. Now go, before you get yourself demoted."

Hopper sighed, because he knew she was right. It would be fine; Eleven's powers weren't being nearly as obvious as they could be, and if the morning was indication, she'd probably just sleep until he got back. Still though, doubt was pulling at the back of his mind as he looked back to El. He put a hand to her forehead and winced at the heat, but she responded by pushing his hand away. Her eyes were open and clouded, but she squinted them at Hopper anyways.

"Hop." She mumbled. "Go work."

Hopper chuckled. He ran his hand over Eleven's face delicately before standing up.

"Guess I can't argue with that. Make sure she drinks some water while I'm gone." Hopper turned from Flo to his daughter. "Love you, girlie. I'll be back as soon as I can."

El was already dozing off, and Flo put her hand on her co-worker's shoulder.

"We'll be fine, Jim. Go."

Hopper looked to Flo. He looked to Eleven. He looked back to Flo. And then Hopper was gone, on his way to investigate the meth-heads of Hawkins.

Flo went back to her desk after he left, because it didn't look like Jane would be up anytime soon. It was noon, an hour after Hopper had left, when Flo noticed the small girl stir. She moved over to the couch and sat down, and smiled when Jane's eyes started to open.

"How are you feeling, dear?" Flo said after a moment, because the girl before her was sitting up slowly, and her bleary eyes were confused. Jane shrugged.

"Bad." She mumbled. Flo made a face of concern, and recalled all of her child-raising years before placing her hand on the girl's forehead. She tutted.

"You're a little warm, ."

Jane's eyes fluttered and she leaned forward onto Flo's hand. She didn't really know Flo at all, but her hand was cold, and it felt nice against her burning skin.

"How about we get you something nice to eat, huh?" Flo asked, carefully petting Jane's damp curls from her eyes. Jane opened her eyes and made a face. Uhm, no, she didn't want to eat, thank you very much. Flo seemed to sense this.

"Oh, don't you worry hon, this won't be too much. It might even help your belly feel better. You wanna give it a go? Only if you're feeling peckish, though. Don't wanna give you too much."

Eleven thought. She was feeling kind of hungry - not really in a hungry way, but more of a weak, in need of sustenance way - and if Flo didn't think it would make her  _throw up_ again, she was all for trying to eat. She nodded, blinking her eyes as she did so. Flo gave her a smile with warmness that only an older lady could achieve.

"Alrighty then, let's get to it, Jane Hopper. You sit here, and I'll be right back."

Flo smiled at the girl beside her and stood up, walking briskly into the break room. Now came the question of what could she fix that wouldn't be too much? Given the limited supply in the break room cupboards, there wasn't much - some three-day-old rolls, a half-eaten fruit cup, some coffee, a few hot chocolate packets and a gallon of milk that was close to its best-by date. A can of baked beans. Cheerios. A mystery-dish in the fridge covered in mold and saran-wrap, that she quickly disposed of.

Flo stepped back and put her finger to her lips, tapping as she thought. What in the world could she give to this sick kid that wouldn't come right back up? She opened the cabinet again and started scanning over all the cans she had noticed before her eyes landed on it.

Spaghetti-O's. She could make that work.

Jane had almost fallen asleep by the time Flo came back.

"Sweetheart, I got you some lunch," Flo said softly as she came back over to the couch. Jane startled up a little, halfway awake this time.

"Lunch?" She asked softly. She looked in the bowl. It didn't look like any lunch  _she_ had before.

"Yep, spaghettio's are always an A plus in my book." Flo smiled, sitting down beside Jane on the couch with the warmed bowl in her hands. She noticed the confused look on Jane's face, but didn't attribute it to the school-related phrase. Instead, she gave the girl a sympathetic smile and lifted her sharp chin with her hand.

"Buck up, dearie. If you don't like it, I won't force you. Okay?"

Jane thought. She was feeling a little hungry, and the bowl  _did_ smell appetizing. It wouldn't hurt to try, she finally decided, and reached forward. Flo smiled.

"That's a girl."

By the time Hopper returned, it was dark outside. He hated that it had taken so long - it wasn't often that something big like that happened in Hawkins, and between searching the premises and all the reporters that had flocked to the scene, it took much longer than expected. He pulled into the station as the last rays of sunlight disappeared behind the horizon, and frowned. He was sure El would be upset with him - or maybe worse, maybe she was even sicker than before, or maybe she'd broken something, or maybe she had scared Flo with her powers, or had sassed her and was in trouble, or maybe Flo scared  _her_ in some way. Hopper got out of his car expecting the building to be on fire and every object within it broken, but when he opened the door, it seemed….

Quiet. Peaceful, even. He walked in to the building warily, walking as soft as he could into the room.

"Flo? Jane?" He called, looking for his co-worker and daughter. Finally, his eyes landed on them - the two ladies were sitting close together on the couch, Flo reading a magazine and El's head leaned heavily on the woman's shoulder, dead asleep. She looked much better than when Hopper had left - Her cheeks were less flushed, and the rest of her face had more color in it. She still looked a little sickly, but much, much better than before. He smiled and cleared his throat. Flo smiled and shushed him, and El stirred.

She didn't wake up for another ten minutes, as Hopper finished gathering his things and was rousing her from the couch.

Eleven groaned as he shook her shoulders and helped her to her feet. She clung to her stuffed bear with one arm and used her other hand to scrub at her eyes. She was  _tired._ However, her tummy wasn't rumbly like earlier. In fact, she felt hungry. Really, truly hungry this time.

"Hungry," She whined slightly, still not fully awake. Hopper chuckled as he helped her into her coat.

"Oh yeah? What do you want?" He asked, happy that she wasn't refusing food anymore. Flo walked out of the room yet, but Hopper barely noticed. It was late; she was probably about to go home. Eleven thought. There was only one thing she trusted.

"O's." She said finally. Hopper made a questioning face and stood to his full height.

"What?"

Eleven thought a minute, scrunching her face and trying to think of the words.

"O's… Flo's O's." She said finally. Hopper almost laughed, but before he could, Flo was at his side and was shoving three cans of Spaghettio's into his hands. Eleven's face lit up, and Flo smiled as she patted Hopper on the back.

"I told you I knew how to take care of 'er, Hop."

Hopper was pissed, to say the least. At Brenner, for keeping Eleven so unexposed to the world. At the world, for letting Eleven get sick like this. At Eleven's immune system, for drawing this illness on for a good two and a half days when it should have been gone in twenty four hours. At Dustin, who was better before he and Eleven were even home from work, who was completely all the way better that night while Eleven was still throwing up into a trashcan on the couch. ("Too many Spaghettio's, I think, kid," Hopper had said from his place holding El's hair back when she looked up at him with heavy breaths and pouting lips. Her sickly face got serious and she said, " _No_. Never too many O's.")

At himself, for not allowing Eleven the full day of rest she needed.

But that night, when he and Eleven fell asleep at ten thirty, curled up side by side on the couch for the second night in a row, he didn't feel any of that anger. As Eleven slowly reached out in a hazy, sleepy state, her eyes smiling before her lips did, and touched his nose, he felt nothing but love.

"Thank you, Hop." She said. "Taking care."

Hopper smiled, and spoke without thinking.

"That's what dads are for, kiddo."

Eleven fell asleep before it could register.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Augh, this one was really fun??? I love Flo.   
> Now, here’s the bad news: I only have a few left in store. THree, actually. They’re all three pretty long though!! And this will definitely start up again after Season Three debuts! Maybe even before that in little spurts! These last three are what I already have complete though, so bare with me. Thank you to everyone who’s reading!! I hope you enjoy it as much as I have writing it!! <3


	13. In Which Hopper is a Dance Mom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hopper loves his little girl, and would do anything for her. And he means anything.

**September 11, 1985. Wednesday.**

She saw it in a book.

She saw it in a book, gave him those big brown puppy dog eyes, and less than two months later, he's sitting in a ballet studio surrounded by suburban moms, watching his daughter attempt a pirouette.

Hopper doesn't quite know how he got so soft.

Eleven had been begging to read, and Hopper knew it. She hated so much that she couldn't read as well as her friends; she was trying, she really was, but the words just wouldn't come to her. She could read small sentences, and could piece together little words on her own,and was getting better at sounding things out, but more often than not she would grow frustrated and "hmmph" before throwing the book with her mind and crossing her arms.

That kid had a temper on her.

When Hopper had asked her why she threw it, she simply huffed again, not making eye contact.

"Can't. Too big."

Hopper looked at the book she threw, then back to her.

"Kid, there's only 60 or so pages. How small do you need it?" He asked, meaning to lighten the mood but also because he was confused.

" _Words,"_ Eleven reiterated, rolling her eyes like it was the most obvious thing in the world. Hopper thought he felt his heart go kaput for a few seconds as he saw how  _teenagery_ she looked, but then it resumed again when he assessed the situation properly.

The words were too big.

His girl needed  _picture books._

And that was  _freaking adorable._

He smiled, and ruffled her hair, and even that tiny action earned a small smile.

"I'll get you some books next time I go out, yeah? Some books with easier words."

After work that Wednesday, Hopper had stopped by the Wheelers. He hadn't known where else to go, not knowing any other small children or people who would know how to teach reading. So he knocked twice on the door, and within ten seconds, the Wheeler boy was standing in front of him, out of breath and looking out expectantly. His face curled up in disapproval when he saw El wasn't behind the tall policeman.

"Just me kid. I need to speak to your mom."

Mike scowled again.

"Why?"

Hopper rolled his eyes.

"I just do, okay? Grab 'er for me, will ya?"

Mike sighed, sadly, and let Hopper into the house before going to fetch his mother. Hopper had to admit, that boy was absolutely smitten with his daughter, and it actually  _was_ kind of cute. As long as he didn't try anything.

Ever.

Within minutes, Karen was in front of him, and Baby Holly was in her arms.

"What can I help you with, Jim?" Karen said, her face confused. Holly grinned at him.

"Hi-hi!" She shouted, giving him a lopsided wave with one hand. He smiled a tiny, pained smile back and waved a sad excuse for a wave, and she hid her face in her mother's collar.

"Hey, Karen, uhm.. Has Michael told you about Eleven's.. situation?" He tried. He knew Karen knew about El, and where she had been before coming to his home and her own. He knew Karen knew she was abused, and that she had to be kept secret for the next year, but he didn't know how much else she was aware of.

"I know.. everything, I think. Why, Jim, is there something I should be aware of?"

Hopper sighed, his hands in his pockets.

"No, ma'am," He said, turning on his police-officer charm, "It's just.. She never got to learn much back in that place. I've been teachin' her a bit, at home, like math and stuff, but she's really struggling with the whole reading thing. I only have books I used to read at the house, and.. She's not doing too great with them. Even if she's not bored to tears, she can't make out the words more than half the time…" He let his voice trail off before he realized he was looking at his feet. He didn't like asking for help. Especially not from a white, suburban mom with three rebellious kids and a lazy sack of potatoes for a husband. He looked up quickly. To his surprise, Karen was smiling.

"Would she like to borrow some of Holly's? She has picture books, and a few chapter books we read together. I think a little girl would like those a lot better than, what, old mechanic manuals and fishing books?"

Hopper did not inform her that she was correct. Or that the only other genre he owned was cheesy romance novels.

Karen disappeared for approximately thirty seconds, returning with a large armful of thin books. Among the bunch was a book titled "Beezus and Ramona," another titled "Charlotte's Web," and a few with the label, "The Boxcar Children." On top, and most prevalent however, was a thin, pale pink book adorned with a drawing of a little white mouse asleep in her bed, images of ballerinas floating above her. Hopper chuckled.

"Yep. These look more her style. Thanks, Karen."

Once back home, Hopper walked in the door to find an empty house. He was confused, and a little bit angry - Eleven was supposed to stay  _right here_ unless Hopper was there to take her out. The year wasn't up yet, though it was close, and he wasn't going to take any risks. Before he could get angry, though, he took a deep breath and started in the door, thinking rationally. Eleven could not have opened the door for him if she wasn't at home. She just wasn't where she normally was.

He walked in, set the books on the coffee table, and started to call her name.

"Hey, Ellie? I got a surprise for you," He said, but got no response. He shut the door and wandered around a little. "Eleven, come on out."

Still, nothing.

"Jane, come here, please."

Nope.

She really had to start following the rules.

Hopper hung his hat on the rack and sighed before beginning to walk around the small house.

She wasn't in the kitchen, nor the adjacent living room, nor her bedroom. He halfway expected her to be in his bedroom - she usually hid there if she had something to hide. Like that one time with the ants.

So many ants.

Hopper brushed it off, wriggling a little at the thought of those tiny insects. He looked, but she wasn't in his room. He stood there, perplexed, before he heard a tiny oof and turned towards it. He walked four feet and turned right, now looking straight into the laundry room.

And there she was, her little legs and bottom straight up in the air and her head and arms down  _inside_ the washing machine. Hopper couldn't help himself. He laughed, and Eleven jumped, causing her to become top heavy and fall past the point of no return into the washing machine.

Hopper, the massive man he was, had never had this problem. He taught Eleven how to do laundry two weeks ago and didn't even think about the fact that she was not quite tall enough to reach the clothes at the bottom.

She wasn't quite  _short,_ per say. Not excessively. She was little, yes, but she was probably just a little below average - shorter than most of her friends, but a tad taller than Will. The thing was, she was done. Hopper expected her to grow rapidly under his care, now with the right nutrients and regular (well, occasional) physical exercise, but she hadn't. She hadn't grown at  _all._ After her first doctor's visit with Doctor Owens, Hopper knew why. More likely than not, all those years without any sunlight, exercise, or real care, her growth had been stunted. A lot.

And that meant, probably forever, his daughter would be stuck Washing-Machine-Diving.

"Hey there, Janie," Hopper laughed, reaching to grab Eleven's sides. He pulled her out of the washer and laughed at how her mop of hair was hanging over her eyes and sticking out in every direction. She was still in her pajamas, the little blue star ones, but that wasn't a surprise. She barely ever got dressed, because what was the point? She wouldn't be leaving. But then again, she had been getting dressed more recently. With going to the Wheelers' on Tuesday and Thursdays, going on walks on Wednesdays, seeing her friends on Saturdays and having Mike over on Fridays, she was dressed most days, actually. Hopper gaped.

"Jane El Hopper, did you just now wake up?"

Eleven shrugged. Hopper facepalmed. Even at twelve years old, she was already turning into a little teenager. She paused, and realized what day it was.

"Walk?" She asked. Hopper sighed.

"Okay. Whatever. That's fine. Actually, I picked something up for you, you wanna see?"

Eleven nodded excitedly.

"Alright, c'mon, kiddo. C'mon," He ushered her into the living room where the books were.

Eleven absolutely loved the books. She adored every moment of them, and Hopper was so glad to see Eleven reading more and more around the house, even going as far as to read  _Beezus and Ramona_ at the kitchen table at breakfast. And waking Hopper up at one AM to ask what  _this one last word_ meant. And falling asleep with it on her face in the middle of the floor. And having to get him to help every free moment he was home, because she still wasn't the best at longer words, or reading chapters.

But by far, Eleven's favorite had to be that pink book with the mouse on the cover.

 _Angelina Ballerina_ became a household name, and tutus became an everyday wish. It was everywhere in his house - drawings, art projects, make-shift costumes - and Hopper was about  _this close_ to losing his mind.

And then it happened.

It was three fifteen one Wednesday afternoon on their walk, and Eleven had a burning question.

"Ballet." Eleven said, stepping carefully over a puddle even though she was wearing her rain boots. Hopper startled.

"What do you mean, sweet girl?" He asked, looking down at her. She scrunched up her face, and Hopper knew she was thinking hard about how to word her next thought.

"Ballet. Want to.. do that. Want to do ballet." Eleven paused, in both her words and her steps, and looked up to Hopper. "Please, Hop? Please?"

Hopper would like to say that he said no. He would like to say that he didn't give in every single time Eleven looked at him with those big brown doe eyes. He would  _like_ to say that, but that would be a complete lie. And friends don't lie.

It was two months later, right around Thanksgiving, his thirteen year old daughter was all decked out in the finest tutu and leotard he could afford, and she was attending her very first ballet lesson.

And Hopper was seated in the room on the benches, surrounded by seventeen suburban moms all ooing and awing over their little girls being graceful little fairies.

His little girl was currently trying to catch a spider that she had found in the corner, but whatever. It had only cost fifty dollars straight up to get her into these classes. And twenty for the leotard. And ten for the tutu. And five for the tights. And fifteen for the slippers.

Hopper sighed.

"Which one is yours?" A woman with obviously dyed blonde hair asked him, leaning over with a warm smile. Hopper sighed.

"She's the little one with her head in the cubbies. Jane Hopper."

The woman smiled.

"Oh, I can see the resemblance."

Hopper didn't know whether to smile or frown, because one, thinking of Eleven taking after him even after not being actually related made him feel unconditionally proud, but, two, all the lady could see was little Jane Hopper's rear end as she made an utter fool of herself trying to do something completely insane in public.

Hopper almost laughed. That was exactly what he was known for. Instead he nodded and looked lovingly at his child.

"Yes ma'am, she takes after my side."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i love this one but like the two coming up i am so hyped about


	14. In Which She Visits Mama

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eleven is nervous when she asks if she can, and she is nervous when she does, but there's one thing she knows for certain - and that's that its okay to be nervous around family, even if you've only met them once.

In Which She Visits Mama

October 25, 1985. Friday. October 17, 1985. Sunday.

It had been almost a year, and Eleven thought that that meant it had been long enough to ask Hopper for an addition to the schedule.

Monday - Stay home all day. Watch  _Sesame Street_ and  _As the World Turns._ Do math and writing and reading, and eat alone. Bedtime story.

Tuesday - Go visit with Mrs. Wheeler and Holly. Fold laundry. Practice talking. Read with Mrs. Wheeler, play baby dolls with Holly, and eat with friends. Bedtime story at home.

Wednesday - Watch  _Sesame Street_ and  _Days of Our Lives._ Do math and writing. Find and learn three new words to tell Hopper. Eat alone, but walk with Hopper when he came home at 3-0-0. Movies with Hop afterwards, and bedtime story.

Thursday - Go to the Wheeler's. Wash dishes. Practice speech, read, and play dolls. Eat with friends, and stay a little late to see Mike. Bedtime story at home.

Friday - Stay home all day. Watch her shows, do math, do writing, do reading. Eat alone, but have Mike over for dinner. Bedtime story after.

Saturday - Friend Day. Go to their houses or have them come to her. The best day, in her opinion, other than Wednesday. Maybe better than Wednesday. No bedtime story, because she was usually too tired to hold her eyes open after the day.

And now, for Sunday, Eleven wanted an addition.

She brought it up to Hopper on a Friday night after bidding Mike a farewell. It was nine pm, and almost her bed time, but she brought it up anyways after she brushed her teeth and while Hopper was waiting for her to get settled for her story.

"Hop." She said plainly, looking at him. Making her eyes meet his, because she felt comfortable with him now, and because she really, r _eally_ wanted this. He looked up.

"What's up, kid?" He asked. Eleven moved her fingers a little in an up and down motion, because she was nervous about asking, and the movement seemed to help. She took a deep breath.

"Want something." She said, testing the waters. Hopper sighed, and that wasn't a good sign.

"Kid, we have you signed up for Ballet next month. What more could you want?"

Eleven jittered her hands faster.

"Thank you," She said, because she was thankful. She continued. "Want to…  _add_ to days."

Hopper didn't say anything, and when she looked at him she knew he was waiting for her to continue. She took a deep breath and scrunched up her eyes, because this was a tall order to ask and she thought maybe if she wished with all her might, Hopper might say yes. Scrunching up your face made wishes work better, you see.

"Want to see Mama, sometimes. Sundays." She paused, then rephrased her last sentence. "Sundays?"

Hopper couldn't believe it. Eleven looked so scared of rejection, and was acting as if she was asking the world of him. He was very surprised that a request to see her  _mother_ was something she thought he would - something she thought he c _ould -_ say no to. He shook his head.

"Kid…" He started. Eleven's eager face fell, and so Hopper continued quickly. "Of course. Of course we can go see your mama sometimes. Is Sunday what you want?"

Eleven took a minute to just sit in disbelief that he had said yes, and then nodded emphatically. "Yes. Yes, Hop, please, Sundays to see Mama."

Hopper smiled and reached over to ruffle her hair.

"Whatever you want, Ellie. I'll call Becky first thing in the morning, alright? See what we can do."

Eleven giggled, because it's what she felt like doing, and smiled at Hopper. It was a very, very rare teeth smile, and Hopper was glad to see it. He loved to see Eleven happy. He ruffled her hair again, opened her book, and started reading.

It seemed to take forever to Sunday to arrive, and by forever, Eleven meant  _forever._ She wasn't just excited - no, she was excited, and nervous, and scared, and hopeful and every emotion she could possibly feel all wrapped up at once, and that meant that, while she could not possibly wait for Sunday to come, she also wanted it to never arrive. What if Aunt Becky was mad at her for last time?

She hadn't seen her family since November. Not since Hopper had dragged her back there with her tail tucked between her legs to apologize for showing up unexpectedly and leaving even more so. She hadn't talked much then - it was mainly Hopper who spoke. He talked to Becky about Eleven, and had made sure all living arrangements were alright. He had instructed Becky that she was not to speak of Eleven, not to anyone. He told her that Eleven had been terribly  _stupid_ to come alone, and that she was  _sorry_ for barging in so unexpectedly. (At this point, he nudged El, to which she looked down at her feet where she was seated at the table and mumbled a "sorry" before scrubbing tears from her eyes with her sweater sleeve.)

Becky had understood, kind of. Only a little bit. Eleven hadn't spoken to her, or hugged her, or seen Mama. She had simply spoken when Hopper prompted and sat to the side while they discussed important matters.

She and Hopper left that day with no love or positive remarks. Becky had said goodbye, and Eleven was sure her aunt was in tears, because she was, too. The ride home had been silent. Eleven was still weak from  _That Night_ then, and so she had fallen asleep before they arrived home and had stayed asleep through dinner time.

She and Hopper didn't speak of it the next day, or the next. She hadn't brought her family up since then, either - until the other night. And now it was Sunday, and Hopper had woken her up at seven AM and helped her pick out her outfit, and now they were on their way to 515 Larrabee Road. Eleven felt like she might  _throw up,_ because she was just so nervous.

"Hop?" She said from the passenger seat, her feet tucked up in criss-cross position and her hands playing in the hem of her skirt. "Belly hurts."

Hopper reached over from his place behind the wheel and placed a hand on her knee without looking away from the road.

"That's just nerves, kid. You'll be alright."

Eleven turned to him with confusion. "Nerves?" She asked. She knew what nerves were; they were the little tendrils in your body that helped you feel things. She didn't quite understand why they would be making her feel sick to her stomach.

"Yeah, nerves. Sometimes if you get too nervous about something, your stomach'll get upset." He paused, then turned his head to look at his daughter. "You'll be fine, girlie. I'll be right there beside you the whole time."

Eleven smiled a very little smile and put her hand on top of Hopper's where it lay on her knee. "Road." She said simply, insinuating a very serious request to "keep his eyes on the road". Hopper just laughed, but he kept Eleven's hand in his as he turned back to the road ahead of them. El looked out the window.

It was a horrid day for this outing, and it made Eleven sad that this was the day she had chosen. It was greatly overcast, meaning the entire outdoor area was coated in this gray, gloomy color that Made Eleven feel sad. And it was drizzling, the kind of precipitation that wasn't quite rain but wasn't quite dry, either. The kind that made you feel yucky on the inside.

Eleven decided that she already felt yucky enough on the inside, thank you, and she wished the weather would pick one or the other instead of being stuck in the middle of rain and shine.

It took another ten minutes to arrive at the Ives residence, and once Hopper pulled the truck into park Eleven was too nervous to get out.

"Hop." She said seriously as he took the keys from the ignition. He looked at her curiously. "Aunt Becky doesn't for…for-give me?" She asked, ducking her head a little. She was very afraid that would be the case, as she had been very rude to steal her money  _and_ decide not to live with her, all in one day. Hopper laughed a little, and Eleven's eyes widened in concern.

"Kid, Becky's family. She won't hold a grudge. Besides, you weren't really in your right mind that last time, anyways." He reached over and ruffled her hair, an action that Hopper indulged in very often, and Eleven took a deep breath. She looked down at her feet and closed her eyes, just for a second.

"Family."

Eleven let Hopper knock on the door when they reached it, because one of her hands was tucked into one of his and the other was tugging at her hair, wanting to make sure the tiny pigtails were perfect for her visit. (Hopper had done them that morning, and Eleven was very sure that they needed a little assistance after the car ride and Hopper's near decade without practice.)

"Good morning," Becky greeted warmly at the door, and as soon as it opened Eleven was greeted with the warm scent of sugar and baking to match Becky's greeting. "Hello, Jane."

At her name, Eleven noticed that Becky's voice was a little watery. She wanted to return the greeting, but wasn't feeling quite so brave at the moment, so she simply nodded, her eyes trained on Becky's feet as she edged ever-so-slightly behind her companion. The older woman turned her attention to Hopper.

"Thank you for bringing her. Would you like to join us for some cookies? I-I've been baking all day, and I burnt them a little, but I thought maybe-" But Becky was cut off before she could finish her sentence.

"Yes." Eleven said solemnly. The two adults looked down at her. "Hop loves cookies. He burns them, too."

And then Becky was laughing, and Hopper was lightly smacking the back of her head, and she was giggling, too."Come in, come in," Becky smiled, stepping out of the doorway and gesturing for the duo to come through. She pushed her wild hair behind her ear and looked out behind them. "Looks like it's starting to rain."

El followed her gaze as she walked into the door, and smiled just a little. It wasn't sunshine, but at least the weather had picked one. The smile vanished when a large clap of thunder hit, and she nearly jumped out of her skin. Becky smiled and closed the door, and Hopper put a hand on El's back.

"Just the weather, kid. You're fine."

Becky led the duo into the kitchen area and gestured for them to sit as she fetched mugs and a plate of cookies. She placed the cookies on the table, and instantly it was obvious that they were burnt. She continued on anyways, pouring milk into the two mugs and setting them in front of her guests before taking a seat herself.

"I'm really glad to see you, Jane," Becky said, a watery smile on her tired face. El looked up from where she was reaching for a cookie, and Hopper nudged her. She gave a little smile.

"Good to see you." Eleven glanced to Hopper for approval, and when he nodded she continued reaching for the cookies and stuffed one into her mouth. She didn't mind the burnt taste; chewing the cookie no matter the taste gave her something to do instead of talking. She swung her feet a little under the table and shook her head so her bangs fell over her eyes, and Hopper instantly reached over and pushed them back.

Becky was still smiling when El was prompted to look back up, but it looked as if it were wearing thin. Eleven cocked her head.

"Alright?" She asked, and Becky faltered.

"It's just… Tomorrow's your birthday, and…" She trailed off. Smiled. "Your mama would be so proud of what you've become, Jane."

Eleven gave Hopper a look, and he shrugged in response. She looked back to Becky, confused.

"Birthday?"

Hopper jumped in and put a hand on her back, ignoring Becky's confusion at Eleven's misunderstanding. He'd have to fill her in more later.

"The day you were born, kid, you know that one." He said, and El shook her head. She did know that one, but she didn't know when  _her_ birthday was. Eleven knew the year she was born because it was on the papers she found under the floorboards, and she and Hopper had discussed it after  _That Night._ She was born in 1972, and that meant that she was thirteen this year in 1985, just like her friends. She just assumed her age switched over when it turned 1985, because that made sense. But now, Becky said that her  _birthday_ was tomorrow. Did that mean she was turning fourteen, if she was already thirteen? She tried to voice her confusion.

"How old?" She asked, and she looked Becky in the eyes because she'd learned that that helped people answer, for some reason. Becky snatched her eyes away from the contact almost instantly and looked up to the ceiling as if it would give her answers.

"Oh, lets see… You'd be…You'll be turning thirteen tomorrow, Jane." Becky turned to Hopper. "Good luck on taking care of a little teenager, Jim."

Eleven heard the sadness in her voice at that sentence, and maybe if she wasn't so worried about her age she would ask why. Instead, she was thinking about what this meant, and so she turned to Hopper because she couldn't find the right words and knew that he would understand what Becky wouldn't.

"Little." She said sadly. "Mike."

Hopper understood what she was getting at.  _I'm younger than Mike, and he won't like me._

"Nah, he won't care." He said, and put an arm around his daughter. He looked to Becky. "Mike's her little boyfriend."

Becky's eyes lit up and she looked to El.

"Oh?"

El scrunched up her face and pushed at Hopper, feeling her face heat up. She smiled bashfully at her aunt, and Becky grinned back.

"That's great, Jane. I'm happy you have him."

There it was again, that little hint of sadness in her voice. Eleven didn't know what it meant, but then she felt the little pang of it, too.

She looked at Becky and she saw everything that could have been. It was like the first time she had been here, except this time she didn't know if she wanted this life like before. Before, all she could see was that she loved Becky. She loved Becky, because she was kind, and nice, and warm, even if she didn't really understand everything. And she loved Terry, because Terry was Mama, and had tried to save her all those years ago and had never stopped. She loved the warm house, and the baby's room with the crib and mobile and stuffed animals, and saw that she could have lived here. She could have grown up here, and played here, and been Jane Ives. Last time she saw what could have been, and that only made her angry. Angry because she didn't have it, angry at Brenner from taking her away from it, angry at Hopper from keeping it from her.

Now, Eleven only felt sadness. That was her. Eleven. She couldn't change that. She knew now that what she had gone through had been awful, and that Brenner was a monster and that she should have never experienced that, but she also knew that what had happened had made her who she was now. If she was Jane Ives, El would have never met Mike. She would have never met Hopper. She would have never been able to make Hopper happy again, because she knew now that he hadn't been happy since his other little girl was taken. Eleven loved what she saw at the Ives' - it looked like a wonderful life surrounded by wonderful people, but it wasn't her.  _She_ couldn't be a part of that; only Jane could.

Eleven wasn't happy for the lab. She was far from it, and despised everything that had happened to her there. But she wasn't mad, either, because now everything was okay, and she had a new family. Instead, she was sad, because this was who she  _could_ have been, and she knew she never would be.

She supposed that's what Becky was feeling, too.

The table had been quite for just a little too long, and to break the silence El reached over and placed her hand on Becky's. Becky jumped. Eleven looked deep into her aunt's eyes, searching for the same sadness and pain she felt. She found it, and clasped her fingers around Becky's, but she couldn't say anything. Becky's face screwed up and she pulled her hand away to wipe her eyes.

"Thank you for bringing her, Jim." Becky said to Hopper after she composed herself. Hopper shrugged.

"This was all the kid's idea, Becky. Don't thank me."

Hopper then looked from Becky to his daughter and back again, and decided they were best left alone for a few moments. He pushed his chair from the table and stood.

"I'm gonna go have a cigarette." He said, and Eleven shot him a look. They had been working on cutting down his habit. But Hopper shot her one right back, one that said, " _I'm giving you space,"_ and Eleven nodded. Hopper walked into the hallway and then stepped outside onto the porch, watching the rain as it picked up.

It was storming now, and the rain was getting progressively heavier. Sheets and sheets of it poured, and every few minutes there was another flash of lightning or another rumble of thunder. Wind pushed rain into his face even under the cover of the porch, and Hopper thought briefly of going back in.

But, no, they needed a little bit of time alone. Hopper was smart enough to sense that.

He thought about it as he stood there, rain splashing his face every once and a while, staring at the driveway long enough to obscure the main road from his vision. It was no doubt that Becky wanted Eleven back - That she wanted Jane to come home once and for all. He didn't quite know if she was capable of taking care of a child, especially with Terry under her care, too, but he**, he wasn't either. Especially when he first took El under his wing.

If Becky wanted Jane to live with her, there wasn't really much Hopper could do to stop it. Eleven was, on the birth certificate, Terry and his daughter. She was the legal mother, and that meant she could have custody.

Becky was a reasonable person. Hopper had discussed plans with her the last time they visited, and she had agreed easily. Now, however, Jane was in a position where she could speak for herself, and if Jane wanted to… Hopper couldn't stop her from coming to live with her family. Hopper  _wouldn't_ stop her from coming to live with her family, because that wasn't right, and El was old enough to decide where she wanted to live. She'd be safe here, and that was all that mattered, but…

Hopper hated to think about it. He didn't know if he'd be able to stand it if Eleven decided to live here. It was an hours' drive away, for one, an even if he visited weekly or daily or if he got weekend visits or whatever, it wouldn't compare to waking her up every morning, or to watching her get overly excited about freezer waffles, or to those hugs he got at the door when he got home. He**, if Eleven left, he'd even miss the syrup she inevitably spilled on the counter every morning, and the midnight questions, and the loud, wordless singing that would disrupt him from his paperwork whenever Eleven was in the shower.

He wouldn't miss the constant fear of stepping on Legos, but that was an outlier and should not be counted.

It had been thirty minutes since Hopper stepped out onto the porch, and since then the storm had only gotten worse. Sighing, he officially put out his cigarette (he hadn't taken a puff in nearly fifteen minutes) and turned to go inside, bracing himself for the worst. Bracing himself for Eleven coming up to him and bidding him adieu, or for Becky telling him it was time for him to go.

When he stepped into the kitchen again, he didn't see the two he had left there. His eyebrows knit as he looked around, but soon enough he heard his daughter's voice. Ever so quietly, he moved over to the doorway to the living room, and looked in. Becky was nowhere to be found.

On the couch sat Terry, dressed in a pink nightgown with her hair in a bun, her eyes vacant like always and her lips muttering seemingly meaningless phrases. In front of her, curled up on the floor with her hand clasping Terry's tightly, sat Eleven. She was speaking slowly, delicately, as if she were sounding out each syllable before saying it.

"He kissed me. Kissing is when you put your mouth on another mouth. Mike kisses good." Eleven said to Terry. She smiled a little. "Then we danced more. It was pretty. Want you to seen it, Mama."

Hopper realized that she was talking about the Snowball a few months ago, and he smiled too. Eleven had walked out of the gym arm in arm with her friends, and they were laughing so hard that Will had started crying. She was beaming when she got in the car, and Hopper felt sentimental just thinking about seeing her so happy. She looked a kind of sad happy now, but Hopper fought the urge to go comfort her and instead turned to avoid intruding on this private moment. He was greeted by Becky, who was standing a little ways behind him smiling, too.

"She's been talking to her for fifteen minutes, about anything and everything she can think of." She said sadly, her eyes not leaving her sister and niece. "She apologized to me for not talking well. She said you've taught her a lot, though, and that she's learning."

Hopper nodded.

"She's a fast learner."

Becky laughed a little and continued.

"She got that from Terry. Straight A student for years and years before…" Becky swallowed. Paused. Laughed dryly. "That little girl is so much like her mother. It's sad that Terry can't see it."

Hopper nodded. Swallowed. There was something he needed to get off of his chest, something he needed to ask about no matter how much he didn't want to. Becky beat him to it.

"You know, I asked Jane if she wanted to stay here and live with us if you were okay with it."

Hopper's heart picked up the pace. This was it. This is where Eleven left him, and where he went home alone, and had to pack up all of her things so she could move somewhere else. Becky continued, and that sad, sad smile from earlier was back again.

"You know what she said to me? She said, 'Nope. Thank you. " Becky laughed. "She got that bluntness from me, you know. She told me that you were her home, but could she please visit on Sundays, because that day was free on her schedule. She told me she loved me, but that she loved you too. Don't know how she did it with that limited vocabulary, but she told me everything she needed to." Becky sniffed and wiped at her eyes before turning to look at Hopper instead of at the two in the living room. "You're raising her well, Jim. Thank you so much for that."

Hopper let out a breath he hadn't known he'd been holding and looked back to the two in the living room.

"You know where she was before I got her, right?"

Becky faltered.

"I mean, I - I kinda knew, but not really, no - just… Just the bare minimum."

Hopper didn't wait long to respond.

"She was a test subject. An experiment. This a**hole abused her, and kept her hidden away from anyone her own age. He made her scared of herself and everyone else. When she came to me, she wouldn't even say two words at a time, or let me touch her, or anything. She was cared sh**less, and I couldn't blame her." Hopper was growling, slightly, in his last words, because just thinking about Brenner made that happen. "I wish more than anything that she could have grown up here. I'm sorry he took that from you." A pause. "I'm sorry  _I_ took that from you."

Becky looked Hopper in the eyes and crossed her arms, her face one of holding back tears. Hopper put a hand on her shoulder and closed his eyes tightly, his eyebrows knitting together because he felt her sadness coming at him in waves and he was starting to feel it, too. And then thunder clapped so loudly that the house shook and the two jumped and the power flickered and failed and El let out a blood curdling shriek.

"Hey, hey sweet girl, you're okay, you're okay," Hopper said breathlessly, arriving at Eleven and kneeling beside her before he even had time to think. He knew how scared she was of loud noises, how sometimes they brought her back to the lab, how sometimes she couldn't break out of it alone just like her nightmares. He put his hands on her shoulders and tried to help her sit up straight, because she appeared to be hyperventilating and every book in the room had flown off of their shelves.

Becky was right beside him, and her words of comfort were colliding and mixing with his. Her hands were on Eleven's back and they were petting her shaky form frantically, because, while she had definitely not missed the way that Jane's scream had caused her picture frames to shatter and how books were falling off shelves left and right, her niece was still panicking.

"Jane, shh, shh, it's just thunder, it's okay, it's alright,"

Eleven wasn't any closer to calm. Her body was shaking and she was breathing heavily with her eyes wide. She had snatched her hands away from Terry's and was holding them rigid in front of her, her shoulders hunched as tears began to trickle down her cheeks. Both adults beside her noticed this, and Hopper took action.

"Hey, hey, Ellie, we're gonna count, okay? We're gonna count just like always," He said, because he knew that numbers made sense to El, and that they were something she could focus on to become grounded again. Becky got it immediately and was right there beside him. She took Eleven's hand as softly as she could and began to pet it.

"One," Hopper said, eyes trained on Eleven's shaking shoulders.

"Come on, Jane," Becky whispered, reaching out and running her hands through El's hair, too. "Calm down, shh,"

"Two," Hopper whispered. "Ellie, count with me. Two,"

"T-two," El breathed out.

They said three together. At ten, Eleven seemed to have gotten her surroundings back. She didn't seem disoriented. Instead, her face crumpled and she made a wet hiccuping sound and fell into both Hopper and Becky for comfort. She cried and cried for a very long time, and both of her guardians stayed calm and collected and just petted her and whispered calming things into her hair as they hugged her back.

By the time the power came flickering back to life, Eleven's tears were nothing but dried tracks on her face, Becky's feet were asleep, and Hopper wasn't able to feel his legs.

"You okay?" Hopper asked, lifting Eleven's chin with his fingers. She nodded, her eyes trained on the carpet as she kept her breath steady.

"Scared. Woods. Alone."  _It reminded me of when I escaped from the lab and was in the woods all alone._

"I know. I know that was scary, but you're here now, with me, and your aunt, and your mama,"

Becky knew she wasn't in the loop enough for this, but it didn't matter. Jane and Hopper were talking, Jane in broken, unclear sentences and Hopper in a warm, fatherly tone, and Becky decided the best thing she could do was leave the pro to it. She could help in some other way.

She stood up quietly and went into the kitchen to make hot chocolate.

By two PM, the four were all seated around the living room watching a movie as the storm continued to rage on outside. Eleven had fallen asleep after her hot cocoa, her head in Terry's lap as the woman stared into space. Hopper was seated beside her, also fast asleep with his head knocked over the back of the couch and his arms outstretched. Becky wasn't far behind them, seated beside her sister with her head on Terry's shoulder, dozing lightly.

It was dark outside as Grease played quietly on the television, with emptied mugs on the floor and sleepy heads finding the coziest place to doze. It was dark outside as Terry Ives' hand twitched, and moved ever so slightly to the left, where it was tangled in her daughter's hair. It was dark outside when she breathed softly, the name barely making a sound on her lips before her mind was whisked away in its loop again.

"Jane."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im not gonna get your hopes up but ya'll i just got a little inspiration so even though i just have one more completed after this i have like 4 in the works so maybe we'll get to 15+ chapters yet 
> 
> tell me what you think!!!! comments help me write more!!


	15. In Which They Attend The Parade

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Every year, the Christmas Parade was the light of every kid in Hawkins' life. But this time, two things are different: The Wheelers are fighting, and it is Eleven's first parade.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> its been a very long time but hey!!!! merry Christmas!!!!!!   
> This is my last completed chapter, but I have like 3 in progress. Who knows how long that'll take tho haha
> 
> Anyways, enjoy!!!!

_**In Which They Attend a Parade** _

_**December 2, 1985. Monday.** _

Every year, the Christmas Parade was the light of every kid in Hawkins' life.  _Especially_ the Wheelers. The kids loved the parade, and Ted and Karen would always be exuberant about taking them. And they always got there early, to get the best spots on the square.

Except… Not this year. This year, at four PM, after Mike had put reindeer antlers on Holly and everyone's shoes were tied, Ted and Karen were fighting.

Big time fighting. And it didn't look like they were going to stop before time to leave.

"Mom, c'mon, we're going to be late!" Mike called, antsy for more than one reason. One, it was the Christmas parade, but, more importantly, two, it was Eleven's  _first big outing_ without Hopper, and the Wheelers were scheduled to pick her up. Mike had been ecstatic, until now. Because now, he wasn't sure if they'd actually go.

Holly whimpered in Nancy's arms. She didn't like the fighting anymore than her older siblings.

"You are good for nothing, Ted! All you do is sit in your recliner, didn't you ever think that  _I_ needed help?! We have three children, Ted! Three!"

"At least I have a job!"

"You did NOT go there!"

Mike grimaced. He hated when they got like this.

"Maybe you could just take us?" He said to Nancy. She shrugged.

"I could, but I can't drive mom's van. We couldn't pick up all your little friend's in dad's Granada."

"Well, we could…" Mike started, but Nancy shook her head.

"No. No way am I breaking the law  _again._ I'm done with that. I am now a good, law abiding citizen."

Mike gaped.

"Tell that to your boyfriend who's _eighteen."_

It was Nancy's turn to gape.

"Okay, we're not doing this right now. I'm taking Holly, and you can tag along if you want, but we can't get four other little gremlins into that car and that's final. Mom!" She called, turning to the kitchen. There was no response. "I'm taking Holly to the parade!"

Still, no response, and Nancy shrugged. "Are you coming?"

Mike huffed, crossing his arms.

" _No._ I'll find some other way to get there. I'm not leaving my friends behind."

Nancy shrugged. "Suit yourself. See you there, Mikey," Nancy gave him a little smile even though they were arguing, and Mike gave her a grimace back. She grabbed her's and Holly's coats and was out the door before Mike could change his mind.

He sat on the couch and glowered. How could his parents  _do_ this?! They knew how much he loved going to the parade with all his friends. They  _knew_ it was Eleven's first time out in a whole year. Well, his mom knew. His dad didn't know much at all about anything. He supposed that was the cause of the argument.

He sat there stewing for a good six minutes before he had an idea. He bounded down the stairs and into the basement, grabbing his supercomm from the still-assembled fort.

"Dustin!" He called. "Dustin, come in! Over."

Dustin responded within seconds.

"You're not on your way yet? Over."

Mike sighed.

"No. Mom and Dad got in a fight and Nancy didn't want to take all of us. Do you have Steve's phone number? Over."

There was a pause.

"Yeah, I got it. Why? Over."

Mike grinned. Maybe this would work.

They arrived at the Hopper residence at half past five, and the parade started at six. Dustin was seated in the front seat, and in the back sat Mike on the left, Will in the middle, and Lucas on the right. They didn't really think this through, and all they knew was that Eleven would sit….  _somewhere_ in the backseat. That's as far as planning got, and it had only just occurred to Mike that Hopper was a  _cop._ A copwho may enforce the brand-spanking-new seatbelt law.

"I'll - I'll go in and get her." Mike said, opening his door quickly. He blushed a little as Lucas made a kissy face at him, and slammed the door in his face.

"Hey!" Steve shouted, and Mike begrudgingly opened the door again. "Don't forget to make sure it's okay I'm driving you nerds." He said, and Mike nodded.

He thought about how to get Eleven in the car without breaking any laws all the way to the door, but didn't come up with anything. He knocked the special knock Hopper had taught him at the beginning of the year, and within seconds said policeman had opened the door and was standing gruffly in front of him.

"She'll be out in a second." He glowered, and Mike gulped. He wasn't looking too happy about letting his daughter go out without him yet.

"So, uhm, is - is there a certain time she needs to be back, o-or-"

"Eight. She needs to be home by eight. And don't let her go into any stores, I don't want her on any security cameras. And make sure she buckles in in the car."

Mike gulped again, but nodded. They'd just have to stick Lucas in the trunk or something. They'd be fine.

"You got that, Wheeler? Don't get her too hyped up on sugar, either. She has a hard enough time sleeping as it is. And do  _not_ try any funny business." Hopper said, using the most authoritative tone he could muster. He really did like the Wheeler kid, at least in general, but he couldn't let his daughter go off with him without giving a few rules.

Scratch that.

A  _lot_ of rules.

"Uhm, yes sir," Mike paused. Thought a moment, "Oh, uhm.. Mom and Dad got into a fight, and - and so Steve's driving. Is that - is that okay?"

He looked up to Hopper's face, and the man looked as if he was thinking.

"He a safe driver?"

Mike nodded exuberantly.

"Yes, sir, he's an excellent driver, and a really good babysitter."

Hopper took a minute, sighed, and finally nodded.

"Sure, kid. But he'd better not get pulled over, or you're the one I'm blaming."

"Y-yes, sir," Mike stuttered, looking at his feet. As soon as he did so, something rustled from the hallway. "El!"

She stepped into the room nervously, and her hands were playing with the hem of her skirt. She looked up and smiled breathlessly.

"Mike."

Hopper rolled his eyes. They always acted like they hadn't seen each other in years.

Mike took in Eleven's outfit carefully, and grinned up at her after he looked it over. She wore a slightly too big pale pink and blue striped sweater paired with a magenta, knee-length pleated skirt and pale pink stirrup pants that Mike almost laughed thinking about Hopper purchasing, because he was sure those were too new to have belonged to Nancy. Eleven wore them with his old white Converse, and Mike smiled lovingly when he saw them. Even after all this time, and all this wear and tear, she still wore the nasty old things.

"You look pretty." He grinned at her, taking her hands nervously. She grinned herself, and made eye contact with Mike. His grin brightened. "Really,  _really_ pretty."

Hopper rolled his eyes again. He cleared his throat.

"If you're gonna get there in time, you'd better go."

Mike jumped about five feet away and looked up with wide eyes.

"Yep! Yep, let's go, El, let's skedaddle!"

El giggled, and Mike slapped himself internally. Who even said "skedaddle" nowadays? Losers, that's who. But Eleven didn't seem to mind, and so he walked her out the door, embarrassed.

"Thank you, sir," He said briefly, turning around to look the man in the face. Hopper frowned.

"Go on."

"Yes, sir."

And then they were at the car, and Mike was trying to figure out how to get Eleven into the car and not break Hopper's rule.

"Okay, uhm… Lucas, you, uh.. You just. Scoot over."

"I will not!"

"Okay, fine, Will?"

"My mom will kill me if I don't have a seatbelt on, Mike."

"DUSTIN GET YOUR A** OUT OF THE FRONT"

After five minutes of bickering and giggles and a few disgruntled shouts from Steve, the party was situated in a mostly-safe manner. Dustin remained in the front, and had been laughing at the rest the whole time, but finally they were set. Eleven was next to the window on the left, and Mike was stuck right beside her as close to her side as he could manage. On his right was Will, whose mother had wrapped him  _tightly_ in winter coats and scarves and jackets, and beside him Lucas, looking rather perturbed as he squished against the window.

"I can't believe Max bailed." He grumped, crossing his arms. In reality, he knew her reasoning was sound - a family dinner with out-of-town relatives - but still he was not very happy that she couldn't join them. Dustin turned back and made a kissy face.

"Aww, poor Lukey boy, without his girlfriend tonight," He lisped. Lucas reached up and smacked his face and Dustin turned away giggling. Will offered Lucas a pat on the knee and a kind smile.

"Don't worry, Lucas. We'll still have fun. If you want, we could get her something and bring it to her place afterwards? I have…." Will emptied his pockets (which was a struggle under all the layers) and looked down to his loot, dismayed. "Seventy-five cents and a melted m&m."

Lucas smiled at his friend and the two started to laugh before El leaned around Mike to see.

"Hmm?" She said, not opening her mouth but still making her confusion known. Will held out his hand and shrugged.

"I am not a rich man." He giggled, and Eleven reached forward to poke at the objects in his hand. She knew what money was, and she also knew she liked coins. She took them from Will and held them carefully in her hand, like they would break, and that made Will and Lucas laugh again. Eleven looked closer before she noticed the melted chocolate, and as soon as she did she was aware of the sticky substance staining her palm and fingers. She dropped the change instantly, her face going into one of disgust.

Will looked a little forlorn for a moment. "I'm broke." He said softly, before his facade broke and he started to laugh again. Lucas joined him and so did Eleven, simply because it was contagious. Soon the whole car minus Steve was laughing at a joke that was no longer funny, simply just because of the excitement in the air.

As the giggles died down, Dustin handed a wet wipe back to Eleven. The back seat stared at it, and Eleven didn't take it.

"Steve splurged a little since he's been dragging us around so much and he doesn't want us to ' _mess the upholstery'_ ," He imitated Steve using an outlandish 'proper' accent and paused, then whispered. "I think its actually because he may love us just a little,"

The back seat erupted into giggles again, but Eleven still hadn't taken the wipe. She was just staring, and looked slightly confused.

"It's for your hands," Dustin said. Eleven looked at her palms then back up. "Here, hand 'em over,"

Eleven held both hands, still covered in melted chocolate, out to Dustin and he very carefully demonstrated the wet wipe. He cleaned her hands thoroughly and then pulled the wipe up like a magician may do to a table cloth. " _Voila_!"

Eleven looked down at her hands and marvelled. "Voo-la," She imitated, not quite understanding how to make the word sound right. The boys laughed and Mike put an arm around her.

"Are you excited for your first parade, El?"

Eleven thought a moment, making her patented thinkingface, and then nodded. Yes. She was very excited, because she got to spend the evening with her friends. Even if she didn't quite understand what a parade was.

Once they arrived at the square, they had just enough time to look around at the vendors before settling in, and Steve had a surprise.

"Alright, f**kers, listen up because I'm only saying it once. I'm givin' you each five dollars. Get whatever you want, but don't make yourself sick because if you vomit in my car we're taking it out of  _your_ allowance. Kapeesh?"

The party nodded enthusiastically and Steve led them up to get in line for concessions. He didn't have a lot of money, but he did have a part time job now, which gave him enough to pamper the kids sometimes. That and if he gave them each some money then they wouldn't whine at him all night. Twenty-five dollars wasn't a whole lot to lose, anyways. He led them up to a line, and gestured for them to run free. Even if running free only meant walking three steps to get in line.

Once in line, and looking at all of the options, Eleven had no idea what to get.

"Mike," She whispered, pulling on the sleeve to his sweater. He looked back curiously and Eleven bit her lip. "Don't know." She said, and Mike picked up on her nerves.

"Well… That's okay," He said, smiling. "How about.. How about we each pick you something and you can try all of it?"

Eleven felt herself nodding and smiling, reaching forward to grab Mike's hand.

"Yes." She said, and Mike's face was turning that funny shade of pink it sometimes did. He looked away and shared his plan with his friends, and they all agreed enthusiastically - Will even offered to get something small himself so Eleven could try "the good stuff" (AKA Cotton Candy) with the remainder of his money. Mike did the same, and eventually the group was sitting on the edge of the street, wrapped in their coats and scarves and surrounded by trash from all of their snacks.

Eleven had ended up with a hot chocolate chosen by Mike, gummy worms from Dustin (Which she soon found out she did not enjoy, much to Dustin's delight as he got the remainder), the Cotton Candy from Will, a peppermint stick from Lucas, and, finally, picked by herself, a Sprite. She knew she liked the sweet liquid from when she had been sick, and also knew that it could help with tummy aches as she was afraid of getting one from all of these sweets now. She was being logical, and so was Steve, because when he saw all the sugar they had loaded the Chief's daughter down with, he also purchased her a water bottle and gave her the free instructions to "not down all that sugar all at once, kid."

Eleven had taken taken that advice, and due to it, had no signs of a tummy ache. However, that was a lot to drink. She had tried the Hot Chocolate first, and was delighted to find the warm beverage to taste like the chocolate bars Hopper sometimes brought home to her after work. She drank it quickly (and gave Mike a little kiss on the cheek as a thank you, to which all of his friends absolutely  _cackled_ and Mike went from that funny shade of pink to one of deep crimson.) After that, she tried Will's cotton candy, which she found that she was a very large fan of. She shared the puff of sugar with said friend, and the two laughed together at the color it turned their tongues. It only took one bite of the gummy worms to discover they weren't her style, and soon she was sipping on her Sprite to get the taste out of her mouth.

The parade started right on time, and after a brief explanation from Mike ("All the businesses and stuff in town decorate a car to come through so people can see all the pretty decorations for Christmas, and the Marching band plays Christmas songs to get people in the spirit,") Eleven had really started to enjoy it, laughing with her friends when the Power Company's float was covered in lights that wouldn't work, and getting on their feet and cheering when the Girl Scout float holding Lucas's sister came by. Now she was absently sucking the peppermint stick and had drunk over half of the water bottle watching the parade go by, and she realized something. There was no tummy ache, but she did have to  _go. Bad._

"Mike," She whispered. Mike tore his gaze from the flashing lights of the highschool Dance Team instantly.

"What is it, El?" He asked, still smiling. He saw the uneasy look on her face and his smile dropped. "Are you okay?"

El played with the hem of her skirt and bounced a little on her toes. "Have to go," She said simply, looking at her feet. It was kind of embarrassing to have to elaborate on this.

Mike made a face. "Go? Go where? Are you sick, or hurt, or-" Eleven made a face, her lip stuck out in a pout, and Mike almost slapped himself because it was obvious. "Oh.  _Oh._ Hold on, hold on, I'll - I'll figure it out." He said, his voice almost in a panic. "Steve!"

The older boy looked down, his sunglasses obscured slightly by the tinsel that had been thrown on him from a float.

"What's up, Mike-aroni?" He said, a goofy grin present on his face. Mike rolled his eyes.

"Eleven has to go to the bathroom." He said, gesturing to the shorter girl beside him. Steve paused a moment.

"Can she wait a few minutes? Because as soon as this is over, I can take you guys to McDonald's to eat and she can go there," He tried. Mike started to protest, but Eleven cut in.

" _Now,"_ She said, her hands nervously twisting in the hem of her skirt again. Steve sighed, one hand on his cocked hip and the other now moving to cover his eyes.

"Alright, alright, we'll find somewhere." He paused, seemingly resigned to his fate of leaving the other children alone, when he had a thought. He sighed again. "Anyone else have to go?"

His eyes travelled down his little gaggle of children, and each time his eyes landed on a boy they shook their head. Until he made it to Dustin.

Dustin raised his hand high and proud, and, one by one, following Dustin, three other hands slowly and sheepishly went in to the air. Steve sighed for what felt like the millionth time and pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Okay, okay, we'll go. Come on."

Steve then clapped Eleven on the back to push her along, and the others followed at a slower speed. After a moment, he decided to hurry them along, because Eleven was basically bouncing trying not to wet herself, and he did not want a stern lecture from the Chief about proper child care.

"C'mon, you little gremlins." He said, grabbing Dustin's arm and yanking him ahead. Dustin swatted at him, but within a moment the little group was out of the crowd and standing on the square in the area the Parade would not pass through. "Okay, let's see…"

Soon enough, they had walked into a SEARS.

"Don't worry, El, almost there," Mike smiled, the smaller girl beside him offering a little smile back. It was urgent at this point, but it wasn't scary like many of their other adventures, so she wasn't upset. They were standing at the help desk to inquire about the bathrooms, and Eleven shifted her weight. This was taking  _forever._ She had to go  _now._ She gave an aggravated little grunt as Steve spoke with the cashier.

"The Men's room's out of order." He deadpanned. The lady at the desk shrugged.

"I'm very sorry, sir, but there's nothing I can do about it. There's a Woolworth's around the corner that should have bathrooms." She said sincerely. Steve sighed, again, and looked at his little pack. The boys could wait till then; every single one of them looked perfectly fine, and Dustin only looked a little antsy, but Eleven looked as if she were about to burst. He turned from the desk.

"Okay, so there's no place for little dudes, but there is a girls' room.." Eleven looked up at that. "We'll have to go next door, but El, you can go here if.. You can go here. Dustin, my boy, you okay waiting?"

Dustin made a face.

"You okay cleaning piss from the floor by yourself?"

Steve sighed. It had to be his catchphrase now - sighing. He tried again.

"Okay. El, the bathroom's right over there." He pointed. "Boys, come with me, we're going next door. Meet up right on the corner there, okay? I'll be there waiting."

Eleven turned to go, because at this point she really didn't  _care_ if she'd be alone or not, but Mike stopped her.

"You sure you'll be okay here alone?" He asked, looking around. Being in a store was one of Hopper's no-no's, and Eleven never liked being separated from the group. Steve rolled his eyes.

"Michael Lawrence Wheeler, it's not like you're gonna be separated for an eternity. What are you planning to do, go into the ladies' room with her? Now get your a** over here so we can go."

Mike gave El a sympathetic look. She met his eyes and the two stayed like that for a second, communicating silently that she would be fine and that he would be fine, too. Steve whistled to hurry it along, and Mike turned.

"The corner, okay? As soon as you're done."

And then the boys had walked out, and Eleven instantly dashed for the bathrooms.

Five minutes later, she was out and her hands were washed, and she was walking back through the store to find her boys. She felt ever so much better now, and was really looking forward to seeing the rest of the parade, so she moved fast and with purpose.

She shivered a little as she opened the door at the little burst of cold air, but she recovered and looked up quickly to find…

No one.

Her boys were no where to be found, and Eleven was beginning to panic. That tummy ache she feared earlier was present now for a different reason.

Now, rationally, she knew that everything was fine. She may have finished faster than her party, or maybe they were looking for her elsewhere. She could even find them if she thought hard enough. But…

She couldn't do this, she really couldn't. She looked around, frantically, and her voice made involuntary little whines. She could not s _ee them._ She could not  _feel them._ Maybe she was thinking too hard to sense them, or maybe her brain was just racing so much it made her feel panicky, but she couldn't do it right now. They were  _gone,_ she was in an unfamiliar place, and she was  _alone._ Even if it was just Steve here, she'd be alright - he  _babysat_  her sometimes when Hopper went on  _dates_ (Which Hopper soon explained to her that he wasn't  _actually_ coming to sit on babies, and that he wasn't going out with oversized raisins). Even if she and Steve were not close, she still felt some level of comfort around him. Not as much as with her friends, but still.

But right now there was  _no one._ She couldn't see Mike. She couldn't see Will. She couldn't see Dustin, Lucas, or Steve. And she was full on  _panicking._  She could not breath, could not think, could not see because all of the bustle and swarms of people around her were blurring her vision. Her eyes could not focus on one thing and she was trying, desperately trying to find her friends because if she couldn't find them then she wasn't  _safe,_ and she couldn't find them.

She was sobbing now, but she wasn't really aware of that. What she was aware of was how  _alone_ she was, but of course that wasn't bad enough - She was alone, surrounded by  _strangers -_ surrounded by people who could be  _unsafe,_ who could want to  _hurt_ her. They were mostly too tall for her to see their faces, and Eleven turned around in an unsteady circle to try and find her friends. She shouted out, a weak little yell, and a tall woman gave her a dirty look. She didn't like that look, and it just made her cry harder. She heard the sounds of the parade, but they weren't as joyous as they were before - all she could hear was the blaring of police sirens, the screaming of trumpets, the pounding of her little heart in her ears. She began to curl in on herself, tucking her chin into her chest and covering her ears. Her knees buckled, and she began to fall forward when all of the noise became too much. It was too loud, too loud, too loud, and she was alone, alone, alone, so very unsafe, and afraid and surrounded by strangers, unsafe strangers, unsafe noises, w _here were her friends,_ and she could not think, could not be rational, and she  _screamed._

Her scream was loud, but that wasn't all. Her hoarse shriek was accompanied by the swarm of people around her falling back by an unseen force.

It wasn't too big, not enough to cause trouble, but adults wavered and children tripped at the unseen and strong force, and there was Eleven in the middle of it, curled up on the ground like an armadillo, her body wracked with silent sobs. It was quiet around her for a few moments before a small murmur arose about the cause. It was probably just a gust of wind, most of them reasoned, and Eleven couldn't make herself care about their guesses. Her nose was bleeding and was mixing messily with her tears now, staining her sweater and the knees of her pants, but, just like the people, she couldn't care. She was too distraught.

It felt like hours before they found her, but in reality it was only six minutes.

"Holy s**t, kids, shut the he** up!" Steve chided as they walked out of the Woolworth's. They had gotten distracted. He had noticed them - no,  _heard_ them - through the glass, arguing over something in the middle of the store. He had rolled his eyes and gone in, trusting that Eleven would be fine if she came out before he got back, because if he didn't go in there right now he was sure they would knock over the entire store.

He stomped in, found out what the squabble was about, grabbed Dustin by the ear, and they were on their way out when he spotted it.

It had gotten much more crowded since he had entered the Woolworth's, and he was sure the parade was almost over because this is what it normally looked like when everyone was fighting to get out, thinking they'd be smart and beat traffic by leaving a little early. They weren't smart, of course, because they still all decided to leave at once, but that wasn't what he noticed.

What he noticed was the small pulsation of the crowd surrounding a certain area. Giving a certain area a wide berth before they were seemingly pushed outward, some even falling.

"Oh,  _sh*t."_

Mike pushed passed him just he realized what was happening, and the others were quick to follow him. Steve ran after, trying to keep everyone in sight, and they had to push past the crowd to get to what they were sure was Eleven.

Sure enough, it was, and she was curled up in the middle of the concrete. You could tell just from looking at her that she had been sobbing, and before Steve could think of a plan Mike was at her side.

"El?! Eleven, hey, El, look at me, look," He was saying, whispering frantically, touching her, reminding her he was there. She looked up slowly, her face bloody and tearstained, and Mike instantly hugged her.

"You're okay, you're okay, I'm right here," He said softly, petting her back and planting little kisses in her curly hair. Steve gaped at how well he was handling the situation, and how the other kids were staying back, but not in a panicked way.

They looked like trained professionals, while Steve was standing there gaping like a fish out of water.

Slowly, Eleven began to straighten, just a little, and she leaned into Mike heavily. She sniffed and then wiped some blood from her nose.

"See, we're all here." Mike whispered to her. He was on his knees now, and didn't even care about the few people who were watching. "Will's right there, and Dustin, and Lucas, and there's Steve. You're not alone, you're okay,"

After close to ten minutes, Mike had gotten Eleven up. She was leaning on him, but was smiling a little at Dustin's jokes, and was squeezing Will's hand, and was thankful for the occasional pats Lucas gave her back. Steve stood behind them, herding them like a mama duck, wondering what he would tell Hopper.

"C'mon, El, we might make it back in time to see Santa!" Will grinned, and the group walked just a little faster back through the crowds to their spot. Eleven held tightly to Will's hand, and leaned heavily on Mike, and laughed happily at how Lucas and Dustin were trying to cheer her up.

They did, in fact, make it back to see Santa. Eleven laughed along with the others at the jolly old man, and listened happily to the conversations being had over McDonald's dinner. Steve deposited her at home and waited as she and Mike shared a very chaste goodnight kiss. He walked up after Mike and talked to Hopper, explaining the mishap of the night, but how everything was okay now.

When Eleven started school the next year, Panic Attacks were listed on her forms.


End file.
